


Breaking Hades

by zobo07



Series: Droon [2]
Category: Nancy Drew (Video Games)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-14 00:24:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 52,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7144622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zobo07/pseuds/zobo07
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nancy's most dangerous enemy resurfaces in Washington, bent on procuring his freedom by silencing everybody who can lock him away. She and new boyfriend Sonny Joon are placed in witness protection by friends who also need her help. Dancing on the line between cat and mouse, she must seal his fate before he seals hers. Droon, sequel to Road Whose Course Does Not Turn Back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"You mean to tell me that this is the golden rule of pamphlet writing? Leaving it all until the last minute?"

Sonny Joon winces at his colleague's tone.

"You said you would help me with this!" Jamila continues, voice as hard as the edge of a diamond. "I know you've been busy, but for goodness' sake, if you say you'll have something done by a certain time, at least keep your bloody word."

He doesn't suppose the pseudo-curse she uses is a good sign.

"Sonny, are you there?"

"Yes. And I've come to the conclusion that you're much better at running S.P.I.E.D. than I am. I never made irate phone calls regarding missed deadlines."

"Don't flatter your way out of this."

"Can I at least try to?"

A long, steady exhale follows. "If I call you tomorrow, will you have it done?"

"Yes."

"Good. Bye." She hangs up.

Sonny pockets his phone and peers briefly around his seat in the University of Washington's Physics/Astronomy Auditorium, checking to see if he's about to leave any of his class materials behind. Satisfied at seeing the chair bare, he gathers his things to go home for the day. Seattle really doesn't disappoint with the rain, he notes as he rushes outside, attempting to remember which of Udub's many parking lots his car is in. As it turns out, it takes a full quarter of an hour to find the blue Eos convertible he and Nancy pooled their money on a month ago. It had to be blue and it had to be a convertible, she insisted, despite the fact that the top would always be on in weather like this. She says she wanted it to be similar to the car she drove in River Heights (that was, unfortunately, totaled during a recent harrowing case), although Sonny pretends that she was adamant on blue either because his hair had been blue when they met or because blue is the complementary color to her own titian. The first is more flattering.

The second is probably more true.

Not that Nancy's aware of it, of course. No one who shamelessly wears Mom jeans and horse shirts would be aware of such a thing.

If it weren't for Nancy, Sonny would be completely crazy with this intensive Astrobiology PhD program. Leaving S.P.I.E.D., even temporarily, sent his life into mass upheaval. Right now he's only partially crazy, and, given the fact that he's completing his degree coursework twice as fast, he considers that above par.

That and the steady flow of Koko Kringles from Nancy's lifetime supply and the fact that he's insanely happy right now keep Sonny in high spirits, and the hour commute back to Tacoma breezes by as he departs to the intergalactic path of his thoughts.

Before long, Sonny turns into the parking spot of their apartment. It's stopped raining, he notices. Significantly brighter out. A dark green flash of motion tears his eyes away right before he breaks, and a slight jolt tells him he knocked into the parking block. Sighing against his hands on the steering wheel, he fixes it just as there's a slight bump from the back. Puzzled, he looks in the rearview mirror.

His girlfriend waves at him from her green bike.

"Nancy!" he exclaims, getting out of the car. "Wouldn't you normally already be home right now?"

"Caught three purse snatchers in the last twenty minutes." Nancy beams. "This place is great!"

Sonny laughs. "Not the typical reaction," he notes.

"Speaking of typical reactions, can you try not to wreck the car?" she says, even though she's smiling.

"Can you try not to run your bike into the car?"

"Of course not. No damage done. I did it on purpose." A playful sparkle enters her eye. "Just to say hello."

"You're really psyched about the high crime here, aren't you?"

"You bet."

Sonny leans over to place a hand on her back and peck her lips. "How were your ace detective classes at Twin Udub today?"

Nancy's smile grows at Sonny's nickname for Udub's Tacoma campus, where she attends classes. "Same as always. Lots of talking, lots of taking notes, not enough getting out there and gaining experience. Not nearly as fun as catching thieves."

"Yeah, mine too. But you know what they say. Why get out there and have fun when you can stay in and do boring stuff?"

"Who says that?" Nancy asks with a chuckle.

"No one. In other words, me."

"Well, I say we forget it. It's not like degrees come in handy or anything," she returns, matching his sarcasm.

He breaks into a smile of his own.

"Just wait. Both of us getting degrees, it'll be worth it." Nancy's voice goes slightly weary at the prospect, but she sounds like she believes it. "Criminal Justice. Guess I could learn a thing or two here. At least I'm making the most of my break from cases."

"Yeah. And once you get back to your cases, once we get out of Tacoma, all the better," Sonny says as he and Nancy enter their apartment building. "It'll just take a little time, as it so happens."

Nancy's eyebrows rise. "You're already sick of it here?"

Sonny shrugs. "Haven't really been in the same place for more than three or four months since high school. I guess PhD programs slow things down, not that I'd know it from the first time I tried. Failed my dissertation defense pretty early on."

Nancy seems to notice the way his words tumbled out in a murmur on the last sentence, like he's ashamed.

Sonny can't describe the expression on her face, just that her heart leaps out to him through their eyes.

"Oh, well. I never even got around to finishing one degree. Cases always seemed to keep me too busy, but now that I'm taking a break, I'm actually a little relieved. I mean, this is my future, whatever it's going to be. Can't keep doing things the same way forever."

Nodding slowly, Sonny replies, "I know you mentioned you had to use covers more often since more people know who you are." Nancy doesn't talk about this stuff often, and he's glad they're starting. "I'm sure it'll cool off with a little time. Besides, we all did fine in Mexico. You, Lou, Dylan, me. Nobody blown."

Creases appear in Nancy's brow as she jiggles her key in the lock. "Sometimes I think it'd be easier to pick it."

"Sometimes?" Sonny chuckles, taking her key. "Here. It's tricky."

A few seconds later, the door springs open, admitting them to a modest but tastefully-decorated studio apartment with papers sprawled all over the carpet, couch, everywhere. The biggest pile leans precariously on the kitchen table, highlighted by a fat beam of sun that hits the edge of it and continues to the floor.

"Yeah. And I guess now is as good a time as ever to start working on self-preservation methods."

Sonny tries to fight back the surprise he's sure is showing up on his face, knowing it might make Nancy clam up. They haven't discussed this since Mexico. " _Knowledge isn't really useful to someone who's dead_ ," Sonny'd said then, after Nancy almost made the decision to stay with an artifact he'd been looking for. Permanently. " _Can you not go into situations where you're going to get yourself killed for sure_?"

Now, determined that Nancy's next few words won't slip through the wide cracks of his short-term memory, he's concentrating so hard his head starts to ache.

She doesn't continue.

He jumps back in. "Making sure you're careful isn't equivalent to slinking into a corner, you know."

"I know."

Sonny knows better than to bring up her mother. Besides, he's almost sure Nancy still remembers how her dying felt well enough not to follow her to an early grave. Nancy's loved just as much as Kate had been, if not more.

After all, Nancy has a better memory than he does. And he doesn't remember everything about the day his father left, just all the parts that hurt the most.

Nancy's hand slips into his.

He looks up.

She's examining him softly. "Let's not think about loss," she says. She knows.

"Just as long as we're not worried about you being one," Sonny replies.

"I promise I'm working on it."

"Just imagine how much better of a detective you'll become when you learn everything possible about covering your tracks—"

"I know, Sonny." Her voice grows chilly.

"I just care. Being your own blind spot… it sucks."

Her frustration dissipates to exhaustion. "I know," she repeats. "It's impossible to know the answers to everything. Until recently, I'd been lucky enough to find it every time."

"I can't wait to see you on another case, you know. It's, like, your natural habitat. And, knowing you, it won't be too long."

"That's true, I guess," she mutters.

"I think it's good to take a breather. I love S.P.I.E.D., but letting Jamila run it while I finish up school is, like you said, actually a bit of a relief. Then I can get back there with more clout—Dr. Joon, doesn't that just ring?—and do better work."

"Makes sense. More than anything you ever suggested."

"Actually, Jamila suggested it."

"Well, go figure."

"Yeah." His response is colored by a yawn, and his eyelids flutter.

"We could always move to Seattle, switch the commute," Nancy suggests idly, though Sonny can hear a trace of concern in her voice. "I drive to Udub Tacoma, you're closer to the Udub campus there."

"Wouldn't make much of a difference. With city traffic and finding an affordable place, which definitely won't be near the U-District, it'd be about twenty or thirty minutes minimum. We'd have to get another car. Besides," Sonny's eyes stop on her, hazy with pontification, "I enjoy the drive."

"You don't get distracted, do you?" Nancy asks, frowning. She's all too familiar with his tendency toward getting distracted.

"Yeah, but not unmanageably so."

Clearly Nancy is dubious. She's stopped on the stairs in her trademark dubious pose, arms crossed, lips taut, eyebrows drawn on an incline, wrinkles above her nose in a near expression of disgust. It's mostly fake anyway, Sonny knows, just her attempt at showing disapproval amidst her giddiness.

Unfortunately she's almost as bad at it as he is. Love—or whatever this is—gets too far in the way.

Sonny's eyes flicker away. "You don't have to worry about me, you know."

"Yes I do."

"Maybe I should remind you I'm the older one here, Padawan," he teases with a small lopsided smile.

"Technically yes, but it hardly counts seeing as most of the time you act like you're two." Nancy walks over to their wobbly coffee table, delicately picking up his notebook so as not to tip the whole thing over. She pulls it up to her face quickly, but still too late to hide her own grin. "Hmmm. Professor Scythe?"

"Formerly Professor Smythe. Unibrow and decidedly Russian glower. Very scary guy."

"Does he also have pointed teeth as depicted here?"

"A little."

Nancy scans his face. "It doesn't bother you that I read your stuff?"

"You've been reading it since, like, 2002, right? Who can forget Sinclair's shocking tie?"

"I had, until you brought it up." Nancy mock-frowns. "Thanks."

"Sorry about your eyes there." Sonny grins. "At least you're not blind as a result. Happened to me."

"Did it?" Nancy plays along.

He nods vigorously. "Yup. I went into his office and made the unfortunate mistake of laying my eyes on that tie. Shattered my glasses on impact. Then I ran out screaming—I swear the whole eastern half of the country heard me—and ran into one of the Metro train doors waiting for it to open. Then later I went on a White House tour and showed up still blind, still screaming. Thinking I was crazy, the security guys came running after me. I narrowly escaped. Eyesight never recovered."

"Mmm-hmmm." Nancy tilts her head slightly.

"That's why I wear these thick lenses to this day."

"You were already wearing glasses when the story started."

"I know," he says slowly. "Those were reading glasses."

"You sure something else didn't make them break?"

"Dunno. Joanna yells at a magic frequency that also shatters glass."

"Right."

"You don't believe me?"

"You're more outlandish than Jing-Jing Ling."

Sonny laughs maniacally. "High praise."

Nancy sighs. "Why do you have such disrespect for your boss?"

"Authority always wins."

"We discussed this, Sonny."

"Right." His playful expression dissolves into a concentrative one, and he starts tapping each of his fingers. "In answering questions: no song quotes, no stories—which I technically just broke—no answering with another question."

"Guidelines to help you get out of the habit of using diversion tactics. Please tell me the truth."

"I've always had my mind made up on what I want to do before people start trying to tell me how to do it. Isn't relevant now, anyway, since now I'm working for myself."

"Isn't it?" Nancy stares him down.

A thick silence follows.

Expectant, Nancy continues to say nothing.

"What do you mean?" Sonny tries, though his voice is too high and wavering to convince anyone.

"So we're never going to talk about this? Your tendency to tell yourself you're worthless and you don't have any friends?"

"There's nothing to discuss." Sonny's eyes swing sideways. "I'm taking care of it."

"Because it's completely absurd to think—"

"I know." His voice takes on the slightest of sharp edges.

Hope sparks in Nancy's eyes. "You do?"

"Because you keep bringing it up and saying that." Sonny's shoulders hunch as he takes four steps and, without checking to see where he's going, drops himself onto the sofa.

He hears Nancy sink down next to him. Then there's a light weight on his forearm. "You've helped me. Let me help you."

A muffled beeping sound distracts them both.

Turning to Sonny, Nancy asks, "Is that your phone?"

"Mine's dead," Sonny admits.

Frowning, Nancy rises and doesn't move otherwise, trying to determine the source.

It stops, though.

She sits again. "Could be one of the neighbors."

"Probably," Sonny agrees. Then his face goes still. "Oh! I almost forgot."

"What?"

"I've got a project to work on for Jamila. She'll kill me if I take any longer on it." He leans forward to shuffle through some papers that had fallen to the floor. "Hmmm. Are my notes for that on one of thes—?"

The beeping starts up again.

Nancy springs up. "Now that's odd." Bolting toward the screen divider that sections off her and Sonny's "room," she wrenches it to the side and keeps going.

Sonny follows. "Where's it—" He trails off and watches her eyes freeze on the box of case memorabilia next to her desk. A second later, she's tossing items out behind her.

Surprised at this careless gesture from his normally meticulous girlfriend, Sonny kneels next to her and starts doing the same. He pulls out a black PDA.

Nancy looks at it.

He hands it to her.

It stops beeping.

"My pager from Venice," she mutters, turning it over. "That was a while ago. Why would it be active again now?"

It starts beeping again, but this time only for a second or two. A message alert flashes on the screen.

Puzzled, Nancy opens it.

"Dork. You suck."

Nancy isn't given a chance to process it before footsteps start padding toward them.

"Hey there," sings a saccharine voice. "Are you happy to see me, you alias-stealing snot-nosed—"


	2. Chapter 2

"Whew! Ran out of breath saying that. Alias-stealing snot-nosed kid. There we go."

"Zoe?" Nancy asks incredulously.

"Shhh!" she whispers. "That's Chloe, to you!" While talking, she snaps her clutch up to her chest and starts digging through it.

"Oh. Chloe Katsaros, right?" Nancy smirks. "Yeah, I've seen that passport."

Zoe pauses and holds a finger to her lips for a couple of seconds. Then, returning to her bag, she pulls out a small rectangular device and presses its side with her thumb. "Sound masking. Don't want nosy eavesdroppers. And speaking of 'dropping,' I know I'm cool and all, but I'd appreciate it if you quit name-dropping my aliai—even to my face."

"Okay," Nancy agrees.

Blinking, Zoe fails to respond for a few seconds. "Good," she finally says. "Wow. That was easy. Now try not to make everything else so difficult. Like, actually answering your communication devices."

"So, this." Nancy holds up the pager. "You?"

"Yeah, and I've been trying to call for the past five minutes, by the way. Wanted you to know I was coming, but you know, whatever, obviously you don't care about your life." She glowers. "You are a real piece of work, you know that?"

"How so?" Nancy replies levelly.

"All that time you spent in Greece busting the theft ring? I was there, too, trying to take care of getting Thanos under wraps with charges that would stick. Then once again you had to go and stick your nose in my business—to save some now-missing-and-probably-dead artist and Oliver freaking Twist—and Thanos is god knows where."

"They're good people, and—" Nancy freezes. "Wait. What did you say about Niobe?"

"Dead, to the person who's deaf."

"Um…"

Zoe's head snaps over to Sonny.

"What's going on?"

"Just a second, Sonny." Nancy returns to Zoe. "What exactly is going on with Niobe?"

"She's been off everybody's radar for months. I haven't been able to find her. I called in a favor from Alec Fell, and he couldn't find her. The skiptracer couldn't find her. And it's such a shame. She's the only person in this world I don't hate." Zoe's face tightens with lines.

"Don't give up on her just yet," Nancy's voice softens. "She always was good at surviving."

"Well, what about the others?" Zoe puts a hand on her hip and leans against the wobbly coffee table. For a second her weight falls farther than she anticipated, and she jerks a couple of inches backward to balance her weight. "You need some gorilla glue for these legs," she adds.

Nancy says nothing, waiting for her to continue.

Huffing loudly and rolling her head around with her eyes, Zoe abandons the table and takes two steps toward her. "You mean you haven't heard?"

After a few more seconds' hesitation, Nancy shakes her head.

"Xenia was poisoned, and so was Grigor's cellmate."

"Is anybody going to fill me in here?"

"Grigor's cellmate, whatever," Zoe continues, ignoring Sonny. "That's in a county jailhouse. Pretty easy to do. But no one knows how he got to Xenia."

Nancy's attention narrows with her eyes, glossing over her boyfriend's plea. "And that's what you want me to find out, I presume?" she asks Zoe.

"Nope. Don't really care. What we really need is to wrestle Thanos into a cell before he causes any more problems. That's where I can use your help."

A little nettled, Sonny walks silently over to the kitchen table and plucks up a sheet of paper from the pile.

"Oh, and also, Thanos is after you, too. We need to get you to a safe place, like, now. So pack up some things and say goodbye since you're going to have to be leaving this cozy arrangement."

A wadded paper ball sails past Nancy and Zoe and bounces off the opposite wall. Zoe sighs harshly while Nancy watches it roll to a stop two feet in front of her.

"Okay, now that I've got everybody's attention, what is going on?" Sonny's voice hardens with urgency.

Quickly Nancy fills him in with details of her case in Greece.

"Wait. So you're the reason _Persephone in Winter_ was cancelled for the rest of the week? I paid big bucks for that!"

"Sorry?" she offers with a smile. Turning back to Zoe, she says, "Now I remember. You were undercover, working for the museum, weren't you? Chloe Katsaros. Saw your name in the time cards."

"Yep."

"So what happens now?" Sonny's eyes dart between Nancy and Zoe.

"We get out of here, starting now. You two go to a safe house—"

"Where?" Nancy interrupts.

"A couple of hours from here. I know a lady. Anyway, after that, you—" Zoe jabs a thumb at Nancy, "will help me track down Thanos, and you—" she jerks her head at Sonny, "will help my associate guard against their finding out anything about where we are or what we're doing. Nice passport job in New Zealand."

"…Thanks?" Sonny responds warily, unused to this being a compliment. The line of people he'd pissed off kept him from considering it as such. Thanks to crazy reality television producers, he'd narrowly escaped deportation. Instead, the government issued him an official warning.

He did get to meet the Prime Minister, though.

"We need you for stuff like that," Zoe continues, interrupting his thoughts, "general hacking to help expedite the search and prevent him from making any quick getaways."

"Okay."

Zoe's head twitches up and down. "Good. My associate already located a suspect, female, believed to be Thanos' accomplice. We're calling her Cerberus."

"Cute," Nancy puts in.

"You done interrupting me?"

Nancy doesn't reply. The temperature in the room seems to drop a degree.

"Any reason to be so rude?" Sonny asks, noting Nancy's frustration.

"Yep. Because if I waste time on Q & A, we'll all probably die where we're standing. Have you forgotten your lives are in danger?"

Nancy meets Sonny's eye and shrugs.

"We think she's a hacker, but no proof yet," Zoe proceeds. Whoever's covering up her and Thanos' tracks—and it looks like it's Cerberus—is doing a good job. It's slowed us down, that's for sure. Again, that's why we need you, Sonny. I've got basic hacking skills, just enough to pester Nancy here. They're not state of the art."

"So, in other words, you guys are so busy protecting yourselves from Thanos that you barely have the time and resources to fight back and find out where he is?" Nancy asks.

"Something like that," Zoe mutters, voice going a little flat, face growing a little sullen. "Although you'll never hear me say I need help. More that it'll be… easier if you do help."

Pulling her lips inward, Nancy considers this. Then nods. "Good enough for me. Sonny?"

"Sure, I guess."

"Okay. Grab some stuff and follow me. Nancy, take the pager. Sonny, wear a hat."

Sonny blinks and recoils slightly. He doesn't have any, and the idea of wearing one is foreign to him.

Coming to the rescue, Nancy tosses him the newsboy hat he gave her after she started working as a freelance reporter.

Then they spend the next two minutes doing as Zoe asked.

"Hand me that." Nancy nods at her notebook.

Sonny passes it, along with her flashlight.

"This is going to put me so behind on schoolwork."

Sonny titters in response, hoping he's covering up the nervousness so Nancy won't notice. This is only the millionth time something's gotten in the way of his education, and once again he'd find himself fighting the uphill battle of motivation when it came to returning to school.

Nancy does notice. When Sonny's eyes return to her, she's eyeing him full force. He hopes it'll be the half taken-aback, half suspicious 'Why are you so weird?' expression. Unfortunately he sees this isn't the case, not with the clear worry nestled in the proximity of her eyebrows. "Do you think we'll ever graduate?" she asks.

Nancy has a thousand faces, and this is the first time he doesn't want to sketch one of them.

It's too painful.

He shrugs, rattles off an "If it's in the stars," and turns away. He knows that it's breaking one of their communication rules—being too vague in a response—but it's all he can offer at this point.

A peal of laughter surprises him.

Sonny turns to Nancy, who looks… appreciative? for the breach. Her crinkled eyes eyes linger on him for another second before they lower, almost in a sheepish way, and she turns and calls to Zoe.

"What?" Zoe snaps.

"How long is this going to take?"

"Oh, a week or less. For now we have to work on Thanos' timeline, since he's uh, going to try to kill you in that amount of time, anyway. You guys ready? I am." Zoe goes to stand near the door.

"That shouldn't be too bad for me," Nancy muses. "I don't have any assignments for Tacoma Weekly right now, and I can just send my pitches after this assignment's done."

"A week off school? Yay!" Sonny chimes in.

Nancy turns to him. "What about your job?"

"It's okay. I was about to get fired anyway." Sonny waits for the rebuke.

It never arrives. "Maybe you should freelance like me," Nancy says instead. "It works better with crazy schedules like ours."

"I don't write." Sonny ducks down to the head of his beloved teddy bear Jin Junior, which is currently resting under a mane of discarded papers. He grabs it, holding it close against his body as he pivots around for his briefcase.

"Start a web comic?" Nancy suggests. But on the last word her voice starts to trail off, and Sonny knows he's as good as caught. "That teddy bear sure looks familiar."

"You probably just saw it lying around here and forgot about it," Sonny says, then cuts back a wince. In his hurry to provide an excuse, he interrupted her. Talk about suspicious. "Or you, uh, saw it in Skipbrot in the gift shop there. That's where I got it."

"Oh, so it's the bear you stole after Soren fired you before you got your first paycheck?"

"Yeah." Sonny scratches his head and his eyes dart up to her.

"Oh, how romantic. Kleptos of a feather flock together." Zoe rolls her eyes.

"Hey! I don't steal things." But there isn't much weight to Nancy's protest, like she doesn't believe her own words.

"Yeah. Like aliai and spyglasses. Yup. You totally didn't steal those. Or all the things you take out of people's purses or handbags."

"Or the code and comics you removed from my trunk in New Zealand," Sonny adds, then proceeds to laugh a little hysterically. Maybe Nancy can be distracted out of this debacle yet.

"Enough!" Nancy grits her teeth.

"I thought you'd be mad since it wasn't, you know, exactly legal how I acquired it," Sonny says, trying to keep the tension out of his voice. It is his bear, after all. He's not ashamed of taking what he had coming. Most employers at least had the decency to pay him before firing him.

And, as if that didn't cinch it, it was love at first sight with the little furry bandit. Iceland was a cold and lonely country, especially when Jin's leads didn't pan out. The teddy bear—or Jin Junior, as Sonny had decided to call him—turned out to be his only friend there.

Then, remembering he's in the middle of a conversation, Sonny jerks his eyes up to Nancy. There's a guarded sorrow in her eyes, and he guesses she's been reading his face again.

"My main stressor this week was the thesis defense," Sonny continues, changing the subject, "so I'm not too worried about the job. And web comics—heh heh. You might have an idea there."

"Let's hope so."

"You guys ready yet?"

"Yep!" Sonny lifts his briefcase, jiggling it to make sure he could hear papers rustling inside. They're not in there. His eyes fall on his newest stack of papers on the floor between the couch and coffee table, and he moves to pack them before he forgets again. Then he remembers.

And freezes.

"Oh no," he mutters, hands flying to his head and raking back his black and vermillion hair. "Oh no."

"What?" Nancy's voice hardens as her eyes follow Zoe out the door.

"Jamila's project. I promised I'd have it done tomorrow."

"That's not going to happen," Zoe raises her voice from the doorway. "Now come on. Move it. Let's blow this popsicle stand."

"Where are we headed?" Nancy picks up her bag and makes her way out of the apartment, throwing a glance over her shoulder to make sure Sonny's also ready to go.

"Friend of mine, whom we'll call Diegesis, has a little place where you two can hide out. She's one of our benefactors, gave us the money to build several safe houses. It's a little unusual," Zoe adds upon seeing Nancy's hesitation, "but it's the best I can do on short notice. Plus, when it comes to this mission, her place is pretty optimally located."

"How so?"

"Less talking, more moving." Zoe grabs her arm and starts her down the stairs. "Can't blow this by discussing details in such a compromising location. You don't want your tenants to get caught in the crossfire, do you?"

"Nope. Just the landlord," Sonny quips.

Nancy turns and opens her mouth to chide him, but Zoe's nodding. "Difficult man," she says. "When I told him just, you know, to keep an eye out in the next couple of days, just in case our friend decides to stop by, he flipped and demanded to know which of his tenants was causing the trouble so he could kick them out."

Exchanging glances, Nancy and Sonny don't immediately respond. Then Sonny turns to Zoe and asks, "So are we in the dog house, or no?"

"No, I squared it. Didn't even tell him it was you guys, although he seemed to guess it. Now," she shoes the door open, "I'm going to take you to a place. Then you have to go to another place."

Sonny raises his eyebrows. "Wouldn't it be easier just to take us to the place that the place would take us to?"

"Easier, yes. Safer, hell no. Just listen to me and you'll be all right."

Nancy leans sideways towards Sonny. "That's true, unfortunately," she mutters.

Zoe pops a clicker out of her purse and steers Nancy and Sonny towards a sleek black sedan. "For god's sake, let's get out of here before hitting rush hour."

"Seattle?"

"Nope. The train station." Nancy steps in front while Sonny tumbles in back, and Zoe swings out of the parking space. "We have just about another fifteen minutes together, then I'm outta here for the next few days. Nancy, there's a little brown bag in my purse. Get it out."

"You sure you want me touching your things?" Nancy replies dryly. "I might steal them."

"Shut up and do it."

Nancy complies, her hand retreating with a paper bag in it.

"Open it."

Two sandwiches in plastic wrap, two sets of keys, two disposable cell phones, and a book fall out.

"Eat those whenever. The other stuff is what's important."

"Is one of them vegetarian?" Nancy asks before Sonny can.

"Yes, you hippie." Zoe's eyes pop up at Sonny in the rearview. "Turn it over."

Nancy, who's still holding both of the sandwiches, finds a "V" scrawled in Sharpie on the back of one of them. She hands it to Sonny.

"Those other things." Zoe turns her head just enough to nod at them, still eyeing the road. "Pick a phone. Doesn't matter which is which. They're disposable, so you won't be using them after today. My associate will give you more disposables for tomorrow and then as you need them. The keys open up the room where you'll be working in Diegesis' house, as well as the house itself."

Attempting to take all this in and keep it all straight, Sonny is glad when Zoe starts directing the instructions at Nancy alone.

"The book is for you, Nancy, explaining some of the codes you'll have to be familiar with to communicate with us. Read, memorize, burn. Don't let it out of your sight until then. Start studying now. Have it memorized before you get to Diegesis, and burn it there."

Brow already knit in concentration, Nancy opens the book and starts reading.

"Sonny."

Sonny's head jolts up. So much for keeping everything straight.

"In the room where you and Nancy are staying, there's a file that'll tell you which devices my associate and I think Thanos could be using. Get familiar with those. Read. Memorize. Burn."

Sonny gulps. He's not great at any of those things.

"If you have trouble, write yourself notes that only make sense to you. Then never let them out of your sight."

This mollifies him, and he starts breathing normally again.

A few minutes later Zoe glances around the street at the growing amount of cars. "Good. Perfect timing," she mutters, pulling off and parking on a red curb.

Nancy pulls her eyes from her book and stares with some perplexment. "Isn't that—"

"Yeah, I don't care. Just have to get out of here soon. You and Sonny get on that 590 that's about to pull up if I timed this right. Get off at the Dome Station, go inside, and look for a blond man wearing a brown sweater and green hat. That's my associate, K2. Call him K2, not anything else—" here she tosses a reproachful glance at Nancy, "—he'll take you where you need to go."

Then as if on cue—and for Zoe it probably is—a yellow bus pulls up ten yards in front of them, 590 flashing in orange letters on the back.

"All right. Time for me to go. Both of you, blend in. Now get out."

They run to catch the bus. Sonny's head sinks into the headrest and he's about to drift off when—

"What do you think she meant?"

"What are you talking about?" Sonny frowns, keeping his eyes closed.

"You can sleep later. When Zoe said 'don't call him anything else,' her associate, why would I call him anything else unless I already knew his name?"

"Is this you thinking out loud again?"

"More like I wonder if I'm being crazy and reading into this and I wanted a second opinion."

"The only crazy thing you do is try to interrupt my sleep when neither of us get a lot of it."

"So you accept my conclusion?" she asks. He can hear the smile.

"Yeah. Do you accept my slumber-oriented goals? No, forget that. Sleep is necessary for life. Do you accept my life-oriented goals?"

"Yeah, but… we do have to make sure we get off at the right stop, and four eyes are better than two."

"If we don't, we can just double back," Sonny yawns.

"Zoe probably wants us to stay out of sight."

"Fair point." His eyes blink open.

They get off at Dome Station as Zoe instructed.

"Blond man, green hat, right?" Nancy asks, narrowing her eyes at the stream of people as they go inside.

"You think I remember?"

"Zoe also said he's wearing a brown sweater," Nancy continued through his reply.

"What about that guy?" Sonny pointed.

Pushing down his hand to avoid drawing attention to themselves, Nancy sneaks a peek.

Green hat. Check.

Brown sweater. Check.

Tuft of blond hair on forehead. Check.

Nancy begins walking in his direction.

Sonny follows.

"Careful approaching," Nancy murmurs to him. "We could be wrong, you know."

But their problem is immediately remedied when the man sees them, smiles, and removes his hat as they reach him—revealing more blond hair. "Hello," he smiles. He sounds English.

And familiar.

"Colin?" Nancy asks incredulously. "I mean, Just—uh… K2?"

"You remember me?" He brightens.

Well, somebody has a crush, Sonny notes, battling an expression of amusement.

Nancy appears to come to the same conclusion. Her back is to him, but he sees her stiffen and her hands go flat against the tops of her thighs. "Yes," she replies in a voice like somebody has her in a chokehold, without moving a muscle.

Laughter threatens him. Clearing his throat to cover the beginning of a chortle, Sonny folds his arms across his chest and refocuses on the funny-looking people passing by so his amusement will have an alibi. It's a little adorable, he decides. He's not the jealous type.

The man's—Justin's—eyes fall to the vacant hollow of Nancy's throat, and he practically glows. "You're not wearing that locket anymore, then?"

"Uh… no." After a few more seconds of blind grappling she grabs Sonny, wrenches him forward, and declares, "This is my boyfriend, Sonny Joon."

"Ah." Justin's eyes fall to his feet. "Good to meet you."

"You too." Sonny rubs his arm and backs three steps out of Nancy's reach, throwing her a startled glance.

"So… yes. Yes, let's go." With that, Justin whips around and begins making his way to the exit.

"You and Zoe?" Nancy continues, stunned. "You work together?"

"Yes, we do. I was on assignment when we met in Venice, as a matter of fact."

"Aha. I always thought it was suspicious that you had the puzzle box."

"It was my idea to give it to you. Zoe hated me for it." He turns out onto the sidewalk without a backward glance at them and begins heading to a green smart car.

Nancy is tall but not as tall as Justin, and she jogs to keep up. Sonny takes her hand and her pace.

"Zoe hates this too," Justin adds with a touch of mirth, "but I managed to convince her that no one would expect a spy to drive around in one of these things."

"Cool!" Sonny chimes in appreciatively, hand trailing along hinge to handle. "I bet the mileage is terrific."

"Yes. Unfortunately it's accustomed to only driving around Zoe and myself, so we're going to have to be a little creative with the seating arrangements."

"Here." Sonny sits down and pulls Nancy into his lap. "Solved."

"Fine idea for shorter distances." Justin looks away. "Will you two be comfortable for a couple of hours like that?"

"Yep!" Sonny tugs off Nancy's hat and plops it on her head, rearranging his hair.

"Sure," Nancy replies, a little more reserved, but Sonny feels the sincerity in the way her arms linger sliding over his shoulders.

"Right." Justin pulls out and turns on a device that looks remarkably similar to the one Zoe had back in their apartment, and Sonny assumes that this one is also a sound masker. "We're headed to Anacortes, where you two will hop on a boat to get to your destination."

"Diegesis?" Nancy deduces.

"Correct."

"She doesn't mind helping us out?"

Justin chuckles.

"What?" Nancy asks.

"She already knows you, Nancy."

"She does? Who do I know who li—"

"Actually, you don't know her. She just knows you."

Nancy pauses. "Not sure I like the sound of that."

"She's trustworthy. She's been involved with our organization for the better part of ten years, apparently."

"Your organization being…?"

"You'll have to ask Zoe," he replies contritely. "I'm not sure I'm cleared to tell you. And speaking of Zoe, she's adamant about no names from now on. Code names only in phone communications. For in-person communications, initials are acceptable."

"So many rules," Sonny grumbles.

"As Zoe already told you, I'm K2. She is Infinitum. Infinitum suggested we steal Nancy's name from Cathedral to make things easier, so Nancy, your name remains Kestrel, and Sonny, you're Wren."

"Oooo! So I get a super secret super awesome spy name?" Sonny stops sulking, interest piqued.

"Yes," Justin laughs.

"Good," Nancy puts in. "Now unless you have other things to tell us, I need to continue reading the book Zoe gave me."

"Good idea. I was supposed to remind you of that."

While Nancy reads, Sonny spends the two hours talking to Justin. His tone, while polite, falls just short of cordial.

Until he gets him talking about art, that is.

"I can't understand why the intricacy of mosaicking is so little appreciated," Justin admits, frowning. "It's practically an invisible joy. It's there for everyone, but everyone doesn't see it."

"I know!" Sonny fairly yells, startling Nancy into dropping her book. As she rearranges herself to reach down and grab it, he continues: "What is with people who don't know the difference between scarlet and crimson, for crying out loud?"

"What is the difference?" Nancy asks evenly.

"Crimson is darker," they reply in unison. "Scarlet is almost like orange," Sonny adds.

"Exactly!" Justin repines. "To think of all those who go to their graves never knowing. Devastating."

They continue their impassioned discussion until "Welcome to Anacortes" flies toward then past them.

Minutes later Justin parks at a small dock, hands them another batch of disposable cell phones, and shoves them toward an outboard motorboat. Nancy manages to see the letters HS painted on the side before she is hurried in.

"Thanks, man! I mean, K2," Sonny says, proud of himself for remembering.

"Don't mention it." Justin smiles. He hands Nancy the key and a sheet with directions. "I'll be in contact soon, or Infinitum will. Tear up and toss the instructions in the water when you're done with them."

After he leaves, Sonny watches the boat rock in the mounds of waves, puzzled. "Now what do we do?" he asks. "Is it like driving a car?"

"Leave it to me," Nancy replies, twisting the key in the ignition until the motor bursts to life. "I have a boating license."

Shaking his head, Sonny says, "You really know everything, don't you?"

But his voice is drowned out by the boat as it rips out into the open water.


	3. Chapter 3

A few hours later, a dark block of land comes into sight.

Nancy's phone rings.

As she reaches for her cell phone, she remembers the other disposable phones Zoe gave her and checks those. The ringtone is a little different than her normal one, she notes as she sees which one is lighted and snatches it up.

"Dock and walk forward a hundred yards, and you're here," speaks a snap of a Mid-Atlantic accent before Nancy can even say hello.

"Thank you," Nancy replies, but a click in the middle of her sentence tells her that the mysterious figure has already hung up. She continues eyeing her phone for the next few seconds in some stupor, which prompts Sonny to ask, "What is it?"

"Something tells me that these people are on a faster clock than we are."

"Hmmm," he replies.

"That's all?" Nancy asks on a chuckle.

"For now."

"The next few days are going to be cryptic enough. Can we dial back the cryptic responses from you?"

"What's the fun in that?" The left side of his mouth twitches upward.

"Just want to know I have an ally in all this."

"I'm always on your side," Sonny says, frozen as he watches small waves creep up the front and sides of the boat. Nancy has become accustomed to his touchy-feely mannerisms to the point she almost misses the physical contact for comfort, but the warmth in his voice leaves her wanting for nothing.

She cuts back on the motor as they slide closer to the dock. After another few seconds she turns it off, leaving them a perfect distance from the edge of the pier.

"Nicely done." Sonny tears his gaze away from the water and throws her an appreciative look.

"Thanks." Nancy hoists herself up on the pier and reaches for her flashlight. Switching it on, Nancy waves the light briefly to her right then her left while Sonny gets out of the boat. Tall coniferous trees surround a large pentagonal shadow (probably the house, she thinks), their leaves black and curling threadlike in the night. Visibility of just a few feet. Easy place to hide out in.

Or for enemies to sneak up on them in.

"The person who talked to me on the phone sounded familiar, that's for sure. But I wasn't expecting the call and she spoke so quickly that I can't remember a lot specific about her voice. I suppose that Justin—I mean, K2—is probably right."

"About what?"

"About my knowing her. Or, her knowing me," Nancy adds quickly.

"You mean it's not necessarily both?"

"Right."

Sonny pops up at Nancy's side, and the two start walking. "That's gonna give me a headache."

"Good luck with that. Luckily we'll be meeting her soon. Like, in one minute." Nancy's eyes fall on a wooden structure of medium height that looks to be a cabin. She shines her light on it.

Sonny's head lowers with his eyes from the edge of the shadow to the contour of the cabin. "So that's the home of the person who gave Infinitum and K2 all that money to build the safe houses? That doesn't look anything like a mansion."

"It's probably just a cover for a bigger covert hideout. There might be more underground. Come on."

They continue to the door, which swings open when they're on the porch. A petite woman in her sixties steps out. Her chin-length hair is gray with streaks of lingering blonde, and there are tiny wrinkles around her mouth and eyes.

Nancy doesn't recognize her. "You're Diegesis?"

"Yes. I know you're tired," the woman says. "Come in. I'll make this brief."

As she and Sonny follow her in, Nancy pays closer attention to the dialect this time. Definitely from the northeastern United States, Mid-Atlantic as she guessed before, but not New York. More Massachusetts or Connecticut. Very similar to how Katharine Hepburn spoke in those old movies her father is fond of.

This clue doesn't help as much as she hoped it would. Nancy hasn't solved very many cases in that region.

"Good to talk to you again, Nancy," Diegesis says, tearing her away from her thoughts. "I don't expect you to remember me since you never saw me. We only talked. I'm Hilda Swenson."

The pieces fly together. "Hilda Swenson—of course!"

"It's good to be back in the San Juans, isn't it? So peaceful here."

"Bet it's not going to be so peaceful in a few days," Nancy adds wryly.

"I see you haven't lost any of your acuity since our last encounter," Hilda smiles. She turns. "And you must be Sonny Joon."

As Sonny replies to the affirmative, Nancy notices the tightness of Hilda's smile. After a few seconds she notes that it doesn't put her on edge and concludes that it isn't the insincere or stressed kind of smile, but more of a businesslike one.

"I've been funding the agency's projects and houses for a while now," Hilda says as she sits them down on a forest green couch in her living room. She perches herself on the edge of an easy chair, folding her right hand over her left and sitting up very straight. "People will never turn down more money even when they have plenty, something I learned while working in Hollywood. When my husband and I moved to Deception Island, we didn't know what to do with it all."

"So you gave it to Infinitum?" Nancy prompts.

Hilda nods. "We met Zoe some time back. We liked what she does. In those days when I was Mayor of Snake Horse Harbor and Max—my husband—was harbormaster, we put a lot of money into the town. There isn't a lot of funding for smaller settlements like these, so we paid for some things out of pocket. We gave some money to Zoe and her agency periodically and left the rest in reserve, as sort of a 'rainy day' fund for Snake Horse Harbor."

"But that doesn't sound like a lot of money to build two safe houses," Nancy says.

"That's right. It wasn't until Max died that they got built. As I told you when you were here before, I got bored. Max and I always worked as a team, and it wasn't until he died that I realized that he loved Snake Horse Harbor for the people—I loved it for the place. I stepped down as Mayor and moved to a secluded island so I wouldn't have to talk to the people anymore. They thought I was crazy for not wanting to gossip with them."

Hilda pauses, a sheer mist settling over her eyes as she loses her place in the present.

Nancy bites the inside of her cheek, waiting impatiently for Hilda to continue.

"So I went with that image and left most of my things behind. The unknown breeds all kinds of fears, and since I live here in complete isolation, people stay well away from my island." Her gaze clears, and she blinks and refocuses on Nancy and Sonny. "Perfect place to build a couple of safe houses, as far as Zoe was concerned. Most of the time they're used as witness protection sites. Sometimes, in this case, they're hiding places for agents. Which goes further to remind me that I have to call you Kestrel and Wren from this point forward."

"And no one suspects anything?" Sonny asks earnestly.

Hilda sends him a wry smile. "There's no way to know for sure, but I believe so."

"Good enough for me," Nancy replies.

"Yeah. Obviously we need to crash this guy's party." Sonny looks to Nancy for endorsement. She's trying hard not to laugh. "Thanos, right?"

"Thanos Ganas," Hilda confirms. "He's an assassin for some high-ranking members of the Greek mafia."

"Who has it out for me," Nancy adds. "He's also a former accomplice of Xenia Doukas, whom he killed so she wouldn't testify against him."

"Don't worry about the circumstances around Xenia right now—you have bigger things to focus on. Grigor's not on his radar right now, since he already sent him his warning through poisoning his cellmate. We're monitoring the location, and Thanos is too smart to go back there. Niobe you don't have time to worry about, either. Based on attention to his patterns of behavior and K2's intelligence, Thanos' newest target is you," Hilda nods at Nancy, "which is the perfect situation to spring a trap. We'll do our best to protect you, but it isn't much. Mainly we're relying on you to stay on your toes and help Infinitum and K2 get what they need to catch him when he makes his move."

"Okay," Nancy says, "and what about—" she stops short when her pager beeps. "Why can't she just call me on one of the phones like you did?" she mutters as her hands knock around the items in her purse.

"Safety. Infinitum likes to switch it up in case our communication gets compromised. Better to be out one communication channel than all of them."

Nancy scoops up the pager with both of her hands, nearly dropping it as she raises it and clicks open Messages.

_Call me in a bit. – I_

"Does it say to call her?"

"Yep."

"Then that's my signal to show you to your room." Hilda places her hand on the arm of the chair to push herself up.

"Wait!" Nancy protests, trying to keep things straight with her mind split between the pager and Hilda's announcement. "We weren't finished talking—"

"I'm sorry we can't talk for long intervals, but that's the way Infinitum wants it," Hilda cuts across. "You already know what you need to know, and Infinitum or K2 will brief you further as needed. Infinitum wants you to call her when you're in the safe house, so I have to take you there now."

"Uh, well," Nancy blinks and stutters, "Okay."

Sonny springs to his feet. "Come on, Nance. You should be getting sleep right about now anyway. Driving a boat probably takes a lot out of you."

"Yes, sleep as much as you can." Hilda stands and flexes her fingers. "Who knows how much any of us will be getting over the next few days?"

She leads them outdoors to a heavily-populated forest of Douglas firs.

Remembering the little reading she'd done on the region last time she visited, Nancy begins observing. All the logging that had pervaded the San Juans is absent here, she notes as she takes in the dwarfing height of the trees and watches for stumps—and finds none. The only dead trees are still standing, untouched. If these trees are this old without having been cut down, this island must have been privately owned for some time even before Hilda arrived, she deduces.

They walk for the next few minutes in silence. As they get deeper in, the trees become older, thicker. Most are healthy. But a few are in varying states of decay.

"What's that one?" Sonny points to the lowest, saggiest one of all of them.

Nancy turns her eyes toward the tree. It's not the oldest tree in this part of the forest, but it's closely surrounded by a cluster of similarly-sized trees, and almost half of the trunk is rotted out.

No wonder it's diseased, Nancy thinks. It didn't have any room to grow.

"Good eye," Hilda replies, then guides them into the rotted trunk.

The interior is hollow. Some slabs of wood are hammered into the side. Nancy's eye follows them up all the way to the top of the tree.

"Vantage point," Hilda explains.

"Is this thing safe?" Sonny asks, voice rising in excitement.

Nancy bites back a smile. Clearly he's hoping it isn't.

"Of course. Infinitum added this a few years ago. The tree is fake. A steel foundation keeps it from falling."

"That explains why it's unusually close to some of the other trees." Nancy continues to turn, inspecting it. "A little conspicuous, isn't it?"

Hilda chuckles. "Just wait."

A few seconds after that the ground begins to quiver underneath them. Then it jolts and drops a foot.

Startled, Sonny grabs Nancy's arm.

"It's equipped with a retinal scanner. Only those whose DNA is in the system can get down here. If any of us is with a stranger who isn't in the system, though, it shuts down, and you can't access the safe house."

"Neat!" Sonny says with admiration.

"How did you get my DNA?" Nancy's eyebrows draw together low over her forehead. "Or Sonny's, for that matter?"

"You've been in the system for quite some time, Nancy. You," her eyes flick over to Sonny, "were just added a few days ago. As for how, that's a question for Infinitum. Just don't expect her to answer."

"Aren't I supposed to call her?" Nancy asks as they plunge deeper underground.

"When we're in the safe house," Hilda says. "No contact with her outside the safe house except in case of emergencies. There's a communications protocol in your room."

Overhead lights snap on, revealing a large gray metal door in front of them. Nancy realizes that they've stopped moving.

A click sounds from the door.

"More security, huh?" Sonny looks at Hilda.

"Yes. The door won't unlock for just anyone." She pulls it open and strides into a gray narrow hallway with four doors on each side and one on the farther end, followed first by Sonny, then by Nancy, who slows down as her eyes wander the facility.

"Kitchen on the right, dining room on the left," Hilda nods at the first two doors in the hall.

Nancy mentally records the locations.

"These next three doors are rooms—the second to last on the left is yours—a bathroom on each end, and the last one on the right is an exit route." She moves toward the door at the end of the hallway and waits for them to catch up. Then she opens it.

They're in another hallway, this one longer than the first. The first thing Nancy notices is a row of metal lockers on the right. In addition there are two doors on the right side—one before the lockers and one beyond—and five on the left.

Moving from right to left, near to far, Hilda rattles off more names: "Briefing room, general communications room, another exit, code room, resources, map room."

This time it's Sonny who stays behind and takes it all in.

"And that last one? What's in there?" Nancy stares at the last door on the right.

"I believe equipment. Electronic devices. Gadgets—whatever you want to call them."

Sonny's eyes light up. "Really?"

"Check it out." Hilda smiles. "Now that I've given the grand tour, I should go. And Nancy, now would be a good time to call Zoe. It was wonderful seeing you again, and good to meet you as well, Sonny."

Sonny grins by way of reply.

Opening the second door on the left, Hilda disappears.

Making a beeline toward the gadgets room, Sonny grabs the knob—it rattles. "Why won't it open?"

"Take your hand off." Nancy examines the knob, then points. "See that?"

Sonny looks closer. There's a black square on the top of it.

"Fingerprint scanner. You know what to do."

Pressing the black square, he carefully pulls at the door. It opens this time.

While he's exploring, Nancy pulls out one of the disposable phones and dials the number Zoe left for her.

"Hey," Zoe says.

"Hi."

"Are you in the safe house?"

"Yep."

"That book of codes I gave you is memorized?"

"Uh-huh."

"Good work. There's another book in your room I'll need you to memorize."

Nancy suppresses a groan. "How much information do you think I can hold?"

"It's not difficult. You'll have it in no time."

The line clicks.

Sighing, Nancy pockets the phone and returns to the first hallway, heading to their room. Second to last from the left, she mutters under her breath. It opens readily under her thumbprint. The room is small, and the walls are pale concrete and spare—probably won't be colorful enough for Sonny—with a bed and sturdy-looking wooden desk shoved neatly against them at the farther end. A short wooden dresser and nightstand with a gooseneck lamp make up the rest of the space. All in all, a definite improvement on their even-more-cramped apartment.

Nancy looks back at the nightstand. Sure enough, a book is perched on the corner.

Picking it up, Nancy reads the handwritten title. Book of Life.

"Cute," she says. Sitting down on the bed, she begins to read.

_I._

_Lilacs are purple;_

_Hydrants are red;_

_If you don't memorize_

_You will be dead._

"Ha ha." Nancy flips through the rest of the book, which offers similar quatrains.

Suddenly it makes sense to her. The keywords to deciphering the codes Zoe sent her are in these poems.

At least they would be easy to memorize.

A beeping sound distracts Nancy. She pulls out her pager and checks messages.

"PAST REMEMBRANCES. WSLMWEKRBXMKFXKFXXHVWWBGZ."

Nancy's mouth tightens in a concentrative frown. "Past remembrances…" she mutters to herself.

"Eh?" Sonny asks, walking into the room.

An idea flashes through her head. She feels around for Zoe's book at her side and, starting at the table of contents thumbs through the pages.

Nothing.

She sits back and blows air through her lips, causing her shoulders to deflate.

Lying down next to her, Sonny doesn't say anything else for a while.

Another notion seizes her. Quickly she grabs the book again by its soft front cover. Gravity pulls the rest of it downward, revealing a word written in Sharpie on the inside cover.

Dottore.

Without moving her eyes, she reaches for the Vigenère Square on the nightstand. And then she grabs a pencil and notepad and gets to work. Running a finger first across the top horizontal line and then down the leftmost vertical line, she finds the letter where the lines form a corner.

D and W meet at T.

O and S at E.

T + L = S

T, M, T

**TEST**

A familiar word. She's doing it right. Encouraged, Nancy continues.

**TESTING**

"Is that fun or something?" Sonny asks.

"A little."

"Looks tedious."

**TESTINGTES**

Lips press her shoulder.

"Are you trying to distract me?"

A nose nudges her neck. "Mmm-hmmm." Then he freezes. "Oh no."

"Jamila's project?" Nancy guesses, smiling over her code.

**TESTINGTEST**

"Oh no. Oh no. Oh shit." His words tickle her skin. "She's gonna kill me. I just know it."

"Just come to terms with the fact that you aren't going to be getting them done anytime in the next week. Then try to relax."

The worry is wearing him out. Nancy can tell by his sudden retreat, the string of nonsense words that follow, and a final defeated thump as his head lands in the pillow on the other side of the bed. "Would contacting her put her in any danger?"

"Probably."

"But I can't just—not—"

**TESTINGTESTING**

"Since the first two words are 'testing,'" he begins tightly, not moving, "bet all the words left are numbers. It's a nothing message."

Nancy quickly counts the remaining letters. "That would be consistent," she admits.

"Email's off limits, too?"

"Wouldn't suggest it, but it's up to you. Do whatever you need to make sure that you're focused for the rest of the week." She squints and traces a line of letters across the Vigenère Square. "This takes priority."

"I guess I'll leave it then." He yawns. "Let's both call it a night."

"Can't leave any stone unturned."

"Weren't we just told to sleep as much as we can?" His voice drops a few pitches due to exhaustion.

**TESTINGTESTINGONE**

"There's probably something at the end of this message and Zoe is trying to trick me into not reading it just so she can scold me about it later."

"You're the detective. Right now I've got nothing better to do than backseat snoop, though."

**TESTINGTESTINGONETWO**

She's tempted to set it down. Just a few more letters, though…

"Free pass to backseat hack whenever you want. Who knows? Maybe you're better at airport codes than me."

**TESTINGTESTINGONETWOTHREE.**

Nancy shakes her head. "Really, Zoe?"

Sonny glances at the sheet of paper. "Told you."

"Better at airport codes, huh?" She sets everything down on the nightstand and turns on her side to face him. "You knew exactly what you were doing."

"No. You knew exactly what I was doing. I never know exactly what I'm doing." Yawning, he winds an arm around her back.

"Sure you don't." She grins weakly at him, then falls asleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Zoe's eyes crack open to the sound of running water. At first she thinks she's dreaming. But no: yesterday she'd finally managed to get some friends to coax the right people into turning the tap back on in good old empty Hotel Griffin in Tacoma.

She smiles. Being a spy has lots of perks.

The shower stops, and so does her peace of mind with the sound of her codename being called.

Justin pops his head out of the bathroom. "Why are we still staying in a hotel? If Thanos comes by, this isn't exactly defensible."

"Because we enjoy kicking it old school. And let's call him Hades from now on for safety. I try my best to keep our living areas free of bugs, but bad things have happened before. Besides, I've always wanted to rent out an entire hotel. Nothing like telling people they're going to die to get them to leave. Almost as good as shouting 'Fire!' in a crowded room."

"Huh." His expression dissolves into a vacant frown. "Shouting 'Fire!' in a crowded room?"

"American Supreme Court ruling. Forget it. There something you wanted to tell me? Other than you're sick of sharing a hotel room with me?"

"You wouldn't leave me alone if I tried. Are there any towels in there?"

"Nope."

"Then how about grabbing one from any of the hundreds of empty rooms?"

"Do it yourself. There's nobody to scream bloody murder in response to K2 beefcake. I'm busy."

"Just like you were busy chasing invisible people out of this hotel rather than admitting that it was abandoned years ago?"'

"Have some respect. This was not just a hotel. It was a brewery-hotel, which you should be able to appreciate as an Englishman."

He chortles. "Isn't that ethnic profiling?"

"Yep. White boy profiling at its best: pub profiling."

"Well, as far as I'm concerned, this isn't a brewery anymore because I couldn't find any beer."

"I found some and put it away. When we catch Than—Hades, you won't have to be teetotal anymore. So now you have an added incentive."

Smile fading, he steps out and shuts the bathroom door behind him. "I already have an incentive."

Zoe blinks. "This again, K2?"

"Always this again." He grabs a pillow and wrenches it out of its case, tying the flat fabric over his head.

"First of all, what are you doing? Your hair will be dry in ten minutes anyway. Second of all, you really have to get over her. For your own sake, not hers."

"I know."

"So are you going to tell me what you're doing, or no?"

"What about you?" Justin sinks on the dusty bed and looks up at Zoe with his head propped up on his elbows which are propped up on his knees. "What are you doing that's so important you couldn't find me a towel when I was in need?"

"Well, Kestrel goes to a university here. I figured Hades might show up looking for her so that's where I'm headed."

"By this time, Hades will know she's gone. I told you, he has somebody finding this stuff out for him. I've been doing my best blocking Cerberus's hacking, but it's not as if I can stop them going to Kestrel and Wren's apartment and finding the place deserted."

"It's still worth checking out. At this point, Hades likely only knows she's out of her apartment. It wouldn't be in his best interest to ignore University of Washington, and it's not in my best interest either."

"What's your cover going to be?"

"Think I'll use Samantha for this one." Zoe snaps around to the wall safe and starts dialing the combination. "Thanks for helping me break into this thing, by the way. They really don't make them like this anymore."

"The older it is, the stronger material it's made of." Justin nods. "As for going with Samantha, though, I wouldn't advise that."

"Why not?"

"Unless you're trying to get Hades to come to you, it isn't a good idea. Remember two months ago when I dug up some new information on Vladimir Thanatos?"

"The guy who owned the Sadal Melik sapphire that I was scheduled to steal back in Venice, right?" The safe swings open, and Zoe grabs her red wig.

"Only Kestrel stole it right from under your nose. Bridget again?"

"Don't remind me. And yes. She's pretty fun except for the accent." She'll never admit it, but Bridget Shaw is Zoe's second favorite alias after Chloe Katsaros.

"The similarity in their—Thanos' and Thanatos'—names isn't a coincidence," Justin continues, sitting on the foot of his bed while Zoe plucks up an olive green rucksack with necessary props for her cover inside, brown tights, and a knee-length dress in a rusty shade of blue.

"No shit. Let me guess: Thanatos is Thanos' evil twin brother?"

"Both names came up in conjunction with the Greek mafia. I recently found out that Thanatos is more of a distant relation, second cousin once removed."

"Can you verify that?" Zoe asks as she crumples the clothes in her arms. "Sometimes people just make up other people, you know."

"I actually saw the fellow. Red hair and a different facial structure. Subtly different, but different. Has Hades had plastic surgery lately? And should you really be smashing the clothes like that?"

"Nope. And I saw him two days ago. When did you see your man?"

"There's none in my life, as you well know, but if you're talking about Thanatos, I saw him near the airport last night during my vigil. Didn't take a flight or pick anybody up—I think he was scouting it out. Does what you said last night still stand?"

"'It's too early to tail him because there are too few of us that would be spread to too many locations and shut the fuck up I'm trying to sleep?' Yes."

"Well, don't say I didn't try to tell you."

"I need more sleep than apparently you think I do. And regarding the clothes, Bridget likes them a little wrinkled since she's a country bumpkin from Watten. Makes her feel at home."

"Er…" Justin lags on the word before continuing. "She's not a country bumpkin. She tried to blend in as a city girl in Glasgow, did she not?"

"Are you really arguing with me about my character?"

"When you're wrong about it, yes."

"Hey, you didn't spend months developing her and learning the correct accent, so shut up."

"Make me," Justin says with a twitch of a grin.

Zoe grabs a pair of slacks and chucks it deftly at his head.

By the time he pulls them off his eyes and gathers a retort, she's already in the bathroom changing. "I suppose we'll be riding in the go cart, then," she calls from behind the door.

"I managed to grab some reports on Thanatos' smuggling misdeeds from Lexis Nexis," he says, ignoring the jibe, "although of course you wouldn't commend me for it."

"I know you're superstitious about our databases, but there are better ones out there than that one. We're spies, not journalists." Kneeing the door open, Zoe reappears as Bridget Shaw.

"Some are both. Besides, that's the one I used when I was an asset all on my own, before you even gave me access to those databases. I'm a bit attached."

"Yeah. You would be. I mean," Zoe clears her throat. "Ye would be married to it, me dear. Justin and Lexis, sittin' in a tree…"

Pulling his face into a grimace, Justin grabs the keys to his smart car. "Why didn't you dress up as Kestrel, anyway?"

"I sort of did. Red hair, blue eyes. But I wouldn't be caught dead in those things she calls clothes."

"Okay, what's the real reason?" They get outside and start walking. For safety, the car is parked several blocks away.

"Hades will come straight to Kestrel, but we're not quite ready to bring Hades to me. Right now it's still just the two of us, since Kestrel and Wren are barely briefed."

"Just the way I like it."

Zoe grabs his elbow and pulls him to a stop facing her. "You're going to have to be able to work with Kestrel when she joins us in the field." She scans his eyes. "And deal with the fact that she has a boyfriend. No complaints, no drama."

Justin's lips draw further inward, and he starts walking again. "Don't insult me."

Zoe matches his step. "I know what you're thinking. You've never complained, and I'm the one who keeps bringing it up. That's true. But in my experience, people who never complain end up complaining tons later at exactly the wrong time because they should have been complaining a little to begin with. Since you don't get to drink for a few days, we're going to be talking about Kestrel. Or, more accurately, you're going to be talking about Kestrel."

"Wow. You, talking about non-spy things? About feelings?"

"For you, I almost don't mind." Zoe pats his back. "Besides, they're your feelings, not mine."

Justin looks away after failing to bite back a wan smile. "I'd say thanks, but you'd hate me for it."

"You know it."

A few minutes later, they get to the car. Traffic isn't bad this morning, and in a little more time Justin is pulling up to the main parking lot of University of Washington.

Turning to him, Zoe spits out commands. "Grab Wren and try to convince him to dye his hair a less conspicuous color for fieldwork. For today, give him your hat and have him help you work on hacking Cerberus's communications with Hades. I'm going to try tracking him down. Think you can handle things on your end?" She gets out and closes the door on Justin's response.

He rolls down the window. "Oi! I hate it when you do that!"

Zoe turns around, her Bridget blithe but bearing a trace of a glower. She can feel it. "Do what, lad?"

"Ask me a question and don't wait for the answer."

"Don't tell me you hate me doin' a thing, hear? After all, I'll just keep doin' it. Ta!" Zoe smiles until Justin doesn't leave, when she finally hisses, "What are you doing? Go find Wren!"

When the car finally rolls away, Zoe follows a group of students to the front of the building. She trails to a stop as they make their way to one of the lecture halls. For a second she reconsiders her plan. Staying outside would indeed offer a better vantage point for greater amounts of people, but actually attending Nancy's classes might increase the chances of a Thanos sighting—with him trying to track her down and kill her, after all.

"Fuck it," she mutters under her breath, slapping her rucksack on the ground and taking a block of leaflets from it. "Original cover, here we go."

The stream of students thickens on its way toward her. "Save the Earth!" She swipes a leaflet from the pile and extends her hand, raising her voice. "Stop the suffering of trees!"

A few actually take some. A few others are offended when they tell her they're already vegan and she replies that she doesn't give a rat's ass, just take a leaflet and shut up. Zoe knows that such disrespect is a ticket for the cops to come kick her out, but it gives her an incentive to avoid staying in the same place for too long. With an enemy like Thanos and no K2 to cover her, doing that could be fatal right now.

After a few minutes of active scouting, she doesn't see any sullen six foot three black-haired men. The only Greek she runs into is another Zoe who tries to pick a fight with her, then steals three hundred of her leaflets and proceeds to transform four people into vegetarians in the next half hour.

Bitch.

But at least she's drawing some attention away from her.

It's a rare sunny day in Tacoma, and the light grows fuller with each hour. When orange starts peeking through the yellow rays (although Justin would scold her for using such basic color descriptions), Zoe's phone starts to ring.

"What's the forecast for tomorrow?" Justin asks as soon as she picks up.

"Super rainy." She lowers her voice and continues in her American accent, scanning the students for potential eavesdroppers. Crowds produce lots of sound, making them the best natural sound maskers available, but it never hurts to check. "It's Seattle, right?" she adds.

Mollified at the use of "super—" their code word for "communicate freely—" Justin continues. "Wren does quick work. We've already found a way into Cerberus's computer through an open port and know that she has a tablet and phone. We know the exact models, which I'll tell you in person, and are working on getting through all the passcodes. We tried her email, but it didn't have much. Wren was able to determine that Cerberus plugs her phone into her computer twice a day, so we think she communicates with Hades mainly by phone and wears the battery down through constant active use."

"Good work."

"Thanks."

"Wren, not you."

"I know you love me. Too bad Kestrel doesn't."

"We agreed not to discuss that on the job. Finish your update and complain later. Speaking of complaining—see? I knew it was coming."

"I'll be the bigger person and ignore the conversation that statement would open up in favor of keeping my job."

"Good man."

"But I will tell you you were wrong about Thanatos. He hopped a plane to Milan a few minutes ago."

"How do you know?"

"I asked Wren to hack into airport security information during our downtime. Thanatos boarded the flight."

Zoe notices in frustration that she and Justin had neglected to devise a code name for Thanatos. They can't create aliai over the phone for obvious security reasons, and the discussion would have to wait until later.

Pluto. That's a good name. Little Hades, as Rome was Little Greece, what with the cultural plagiarism and all.

"Are you there? Infinitum?"

She blinks. "I'm here."

"Was expecting more of a reaction."

"Don't want to become predictable. What are your overall impressions of Wren's work?"

"Hacking's quite subtle. As we further solidify our counterintelligence I want to go out and take a look at Cerberus while we're hacking her devices to see if she smells a rat. But right now, I don't think she does. After Wren finishes making our own devices unhackable, that's going to be my next step."

"Sounds good. Because you two clearly have your bases covered, I'm going to catch the next flight out of here to follow Thanatos."

"What happened to 'following him will spread us too far apart?'"

"He's a known associate of our buddy, and I've been meaning to go after him as soon as things were a little less shaky here."

"You're leaving me to cover Washington? Alone?"

"What, do you have separation anxiety? Awww. That's so… pathetic."

"You've never left me alone with one of your assignments before."

"Sure I have. Remember Venice when stupid Kestrel got my passport blocked and you had to handle things for a few days? You'll be fine. Plus, you have an incentive. You're in love with the girl whose ass you're covering."

"If I've learned anything in the past few years, Kestrel does not need protection."

"Maybe not, but we're all in a little over our heads here. Just don't buy her any sausages, and you'll be fine." Zoe grins wickedly.

"Good luck, Infinitum," Justin replies, unfazed.

"Are you and Wren close to the airport, or were you doing long-distance hacking?"

"We're close."

"Grab me a ticket, will you?"

"Done. I arranged a ticket immediately after finding out where Thanatos was heading. Only I thought I'd be the one to go."

"You've already been. Don't be an Italy-hog. I already got screwed out of one trip to Venice, you know."

"You'll never let me forget. Let me give you the flight number so you can keep abreast of any changes until you get here."

"Before I forget to tell you, thanks for reading my mind." Zoe hunches her shoulder up to her phone ear and begins rummaging through her bag.

"Anytime."

Unable to find a pen, Zoe swears under her breath and berates herself for having so many misleading tubes of chapstick.

An unfamiliar face pops into her view, staring at her.

Immediately Zoe scans his physical appearance and develops a basic description: Asian, five foot five, shaggy brown hair around his ears, brown eyes. Wears nerd-techie clothing like an anthem. He's looking at her like she should know him, but Zoe has never seen him before. He does have a pen, though.

Maybe she's heard his voice.

She furiously beckons him closer while K2 throws numbers in her ear.

"Wait!" she barks at him in a Scottish accent. "Pen," she mutters to the student as he finally approaches. "Give me your pen."

His mouth parts slightly in a microexpression of surprise. Zoe fights to keep her own expression from going hostile. Zoe may well be hostile, but Bridget Shaw is friendly. Besides, she should be playing it cool. If this stranger knows who she is—and, furthermore, knows that she's American, or at least that she isn't Scottish—that could very well spell trouble. But soon his eyebrows return to their right altitude and he hands her the pen that's clipped to his collar.

Without saying a word.

"I'm new here," Zoe speaks again, hoping to elicit a response. "Maybe we can be friends! I'm Bridget Shaw. Who are you?"

The name causes him to hesitate again. After a brief instinctual glance at his feet his eyes go to hers again, scanning her face like he's looking for something specific. Finally he says in a whispery tenor, "My name is Rentaro."

The voice isn't familiar, but the name is all Zoe needs. Her morale soars with pleased recognition.


	5. Chapter 5

Wishing for the millionth time that there were windows here, Sonny turns on the lamp next to the bed and reconciles himself to the fact that he will never be able to tell the time of day while living underground. He keeps the complaints to a minimum since Nancy hates being cooped up a thousand times more than he does. He keeps the complaints in his thoughts to a similar minimum because they have this nasty habit of bubbling to his facial expressions, which Nancy picks up on.

Right now, though, Nancy's asleep in a pair of his shorts and a horse shirt in a particularly heinous shade of orange, all tangled up in the sheets with her knees drawn to her chest.

It's rare for her to sleep in longer than he does, and he knows better than to wake her up. The next few days are going to be stressful. And she may be better with stress than he is, but he wouldn't wish such an unpleasant sensation as psychological pressure on the most capable people.

Plus he's enjoying the peace of mind. Sonny's own idiosyncrasies have long inspired him to look past the idiosyncrasies of others, but even he is having trouble dealing with Nancy's cabin fever.

When he hears a buzzing sound, Sonny quickly checks his phones. None of them have new messages.

Nancy stirs briefly then lies still.

With much self-restraint, he gets up from the bed, sits down at the desk, and puts his hands in his lap and starts thinking about anything other than checking Nancy's super secret super cool spy messages. Narwhals, giant potato codfish he's definitely going to meet someday, Mad Dye's latest shade of violet, close to but subtly different from the color he'd had when he met Nancy, who's lying here not answering her messages and now Sonny's hands are tied since he either has to read her messages or wake her up and make her read them but he's not going to do the second option even though she'll be mad at him later for it.

Berating himself for the future, Sonny leaps forward to her purse that's spilled open on the floor and looks for the buzzing culprit. It's not like Nancy hasn't snooped through his things a million times and then some, he reassures himself. His last hope is that Nancy's phones will have passcodes, but this is dashed when he finds the correct phone and reads Infinitum: _HADESINTHECITYWATCHYOURBACK_ in small text across the lock screen.

Sonny's eyes go large behind his purple frames, and he rolls back on his heels. The message is uncoded, which can't mean anything good. Well, he and Nancy have only been on the assignment for a day, so it could mean Zoe's still going easy on Nancy.

But this wouldn't be the message to send naked across devices he hasn't made unhackable yet.

On that train of thought…

Sonny swipes his thumb across the screen to access the phone's recent calls and texts.

And is met with a passcode request.

"Damn it," he murmurs. "Now you give me one of those." Then another idea strikes him. He peers up at the battery life in the upper right corner.

78%, and Nancy just charged it last night.

But she'd been on the phone with Zoe sometime after that, when he was trying to sleep.

Had it been the same phone? Zoe had given them several.

Frowning, Sonny tries to remember the details of that phone call. But try as he might, he can only remember Nancy leaving the room so she wouldn't disturb him. Whatever phone she was using, he hadn't even gotten a glance at it.

Quick battery drain is a sign of hacking, but he can't verify that. Weird calls and texts and other data usage is another sign, but he can't access any of those things.

Suddenly another possibility occurs to Sonny. If this isn't hacking, Zoe might have sent the message uncoded because she had no time to encode it.

Hacking: urgent. Danger: urgent.

Urgent or urgent.

His mind returns to the message's contents. "The City" undoubtedly refers to Seattle, where he and Justin had spent the entire day yesterday.

Sonny tiptoes over to his bag and sets down the phone as he grabs a pen and all three of his notebooks. A minute later, he's out the door.

Out one door, anyway, he thinks as his feet grind to a stop.

What's the way out of here again?

After a few minutes he figures it out and heads outside. A grin explodes on his face, and he's pretty proud of himself until the two outboard motorboats come into his sightline.

"Right… how did Nancy do that again?" He mutters to himself. A second later he pulls out his phone and opens up a new browser window, typing in the URL field, "Is driving a boat harder than driving a car?"

The results are somewhat helpful. Boats don't have breaks, apparently. And the way boats run and turn and everything depends on the water conditions.

He tears his panicked eyes away from the screen toward the water.

Its surface is so smooth it nearly looks impenetrable, like it's in a solid state. Summertime ice.

The thought brings a remnant of the smile back to his face. For a second the task lying in front of him shrinks to a distant memory, but it soon interrupts (quite rudely, he thinks) his bliss.

Sonny has to go back for the key and sheet of directions to this island Nancy received two days ago (he'd have to reverse them), and he's surprised that the sound of multiple opening doors doesn't seem to wake Nancy up. But questioning his luck is wasted time where he could instead be pushing it, so he continues back outside, jams the key into the ignition, and brings the boat purring to life.

~

Nancy awakens with a jolt. "Sonny, wake up. Someone's here," she hisses, reaching over to the other side of the bed to shake his shoulder.

She's met with air and a pillow.

Disoriented, Nancy glances around the empty room. "He must be in the tech room already," she thinks. After quickly dressing, she dumps all her phones in her bag along with her notebook, a pencil, and a flashlight. Right before she's about to leave to see whose motorboat is leaving, her eyes snap on an extra phone lying where Sonny's bag normally is. She frowns. The absence of the bag itself isn't suspect, since Sonny always takes it with him to the tech room muttering about how he hates to make trips back and forth. She doesn't understand because his bag is extremely heavy, filled with all sorts of gadgets he couldn't hope to use half of in his entire life, much less the tech room.

But leaving one of his phones here, even accidentally, is a capitally bad idea.

Even for Sonny.

Her eyes open wider with a realization. She snaps them shut, forcing her garrulous mental faculties to sharpen. "Wake up," she mutters to herself.

She'd packed four phones when she was given five. Two by Zoe, three by Justin.

Curiously she eyes the one on the floor. Then she picks it up and presses the power button.

 _Infinitum: HADESINTHECITYWATCHYOURBACK_.

An uncoded message.

Strange for Zoe.

Not to mention that she doesn't know which city "city" refers to since she hasn't been out in the field yet. Sonny had that lucky privilege yesterday, but he hadn't told her where he and Justin had been. Just gave her a chaste kiss and spent hours in the tech room saying something about needing to make their communications more defensible and breaking into some techie mumbo-jumbo.

Every language he speaks is Greek to her.

Quickly Nancy rewires her mind to the current situation, that somebody's pulling up to their dock in a motorboat. It could be Zoe, Justin, Hilda, or, less optimistically, Thanos or one of his associates.

And she can't help but wonder what Sonny had been doing with her phone, even though she had admittedly checked his communications once or twice as well. He must have planned on taking that particular phone with him since she found it next to his bag, and Nancy surmises that he's seen the message.

Maybe that's why he's been in the tech room all morning.

With dismay, Nancy realizes that her brain is still cluttered with sleep. She's wasting precious time. After splashing some water on her face, she sprints to the tech room. She needs to find Sonny first before taking a look at whomever pulled up in the motorboat, since there's safety in numbers.

"Sonny." She knocks urgently.

No answer.

Headphones? Nancy guesses. She pounds harder. "Turn off your music and listen to me!"

Nothing.

It proves to be too much, even for her. Frustrated tears build in her eyes as she presses her thumb into the scanner and throws the door open.

No one.

A blitz search of all the other rooms don't turn him up.

Nancy grabs all of the boat keys off the nail in the kitchen in case she needs to make a quick getaway. Then she bolts outside toward the dock. Wherever Sonny is on the island, she no longer has time to find him. She'll need to deal with the unannounced guest herself.

Stopping short at the water, Nancy notes the location of Hilda Swenson's boat—the one she drove out here two days ago—and looks for the others. Zoe had brought over another outboard just for her and Sonny's use yesterday, and if the unannounced guest isn't Hilda (which it can't be since her boat is here), there must be a third boat around.

But where are the two extra boats?

And where's Sonny?

Puzzled, Nancy reconstructs the scene. Three minutes ago she had woken up to the sound of a motorboat.

Her mind catches on that fact.

Automatically and arbitrarily she'd assumed that the boat was arriving, not departing.

If she can just remember back to that moment, she'll know.

But she can't.

She tries and tries.

If only she hadn't been so groggy when she'd awoken. Under normal circumstances, with a relatively normal amount of sleep, her mind would snap to a clean, crisp state the minute her eyes open. Long ago she'd trained herself to access her full capacity of inductive power at a moment's notice, since that moment could mean the difference between life and death for a detective.

And apparently it had all been for nothing.

Damn college, and damn sleep deprivation!

Fighting back an exasperated wail, she forces herself to concentrate on the state of the boat before her. The windshield on Hilda's boat is bone dry, signifying that it hasn't been driven recently.

That plus the absence of the other boat(s) means that Nancy must have heard a departure when she woke. It hadn't been Hilda, and it obviously wasn't Zoe or Justin—

Nancy freezes.

Sonny?!

She should've considered the possibility earlier with his odd absence, but she'd been operating under the assumption that he wouldn't do anything as stupid as driving a motorboat without a license.

She still doesn't want to believe it, but all the facts point to it.

And it all goes back to the message she'd received on her phone. Sonny saw it. Sonny jumped the gun.

Time to contact Zoe.

Nancy grabs the phone with the message and calls.

"What?" Zoe answers irritably.

"Where is Thanos now?"

"In Seattle, the bastard. Don't he and his stupid cousin know how hard it is to spend 16 hours straight in a wig?! I mean, what the f—"

"Thanks." Hanging up without waiting for a reply, Nancy hops into Hilda's boat and shoots it into the sea. It's an emergency by all accounts, and she'll just have to apologize to Hilda later. She realizes midway that she'd forgotten the sheet of directions, but no matter. They're simple, and she has long since memorized them.

~

Overall, Sonny's quite pleased with how this whole boat-driving thing is turning out. If he had more time on his hands, he'd be spinning donuts in the open water. But he has to stay on track and find K2 and tell him that communications may just be compromised. He has a feeling he's right, and they all need to get new devices as soon as possible. Then he can forcibly ignore the time he put into the original devices and instead make the new ones unhackable.

Now up to the final sheet on the instructions—which simply says dock!—Sonny beams over the windshield at the approaching jetty, feeling like a total boss.

But his enthusiasm is curbed as soon as he zooms closer.

Several other boats crowd around, and he'll have to somehow wedge his way between them.

He didn't sign up for this.

Reminding himself to take deep breaths, he stretches his foot toward the brake pedal.

It's not until he doesn't feel one that he remembers what he read on his phone before departing: boats don't have brakes.

A startled yell escapes his lips as the jetty comes closer and closer, much faster than he'd bargained. He throws the boat in reverse and sees—and sighs—that he's now going backwards. A second later he remembers that this isn't what he wants, so he gingerly switches the gear and starts the boat crawling forward. He doesn't dare make it go any faster after practically seeing his life flash before his eyes. Guilt pervades him. He's wasting precious time. But if he crashes, he'll have bigger problems on his hands. So with another brief estimating glance at the distance between his boat and jetty, he flips the ignition key.

At fifty feet away, he puts the boat in reverse again and spends the next five minutes floating towards the dock. In the middle he nearly loses his nerve, fearing that he won't be able to coast the rest of the way and the boat will just stop dead in the water. His breathing and heart rate pick up at the thought of turning the boat on again.

He doesn't remember anything after that until the boat bumps into the exact slot he'd picked out for it at the dock. Leaping out, he ties up the boat and starts a mad sprint towards only subway station in sight. Justin mentioned yesterday that he'd been spending most of his time at the airport, going as far as to call it his "vantage point."

And the airport, serving both Seattle and Tacoma, is quite a distance away.

Right before skittering down the steps he remembers he's never used the subway in Seattle since he always had a car to drive around. So Sonny opts for a taxi instead, telling himself he'll worry about the extra expenditure later. Right now, time is of the essence.

He spends most of the time in the car quivering and wondering if he's doing this all wrong, if calling K2 on any of the compromised devices is better than taking forever to warn him about aforementioned devices.

To make matters worse, Nancy is calling him.

A few seconds of frantic decision-making don't do anything for him, so he finally just picks up the phone on the last ring from habit. "Listen to me," he begins shakily, "I think somebody hacked us. Don't say anything. Don't call anyone."

"How am I supposed to know where you are, or where anyone is?"

If Sonny were a nail biter, those sons of bitches would be royally chewed.

And then an answer hits him.

"That necklace. You're not wearing it right now, but remember where you got it?"

"I didn't get it; you—oh." He hears the gears click in her brain. "I get it."

"Good."

"Do you have any idea how furious I am with you right now?"

"I can guess."

"Bye."

"I love you," Sonny replies feebly.

She sighs. "I love you, too."

Sonny hangs up.

And then what he just said hits him.

Well, not so much that. He knows he loves her. He's known it for a while now.

What he hadn't known was she would automatically respond with a reciprocal statement.

The day's events up until now and more recent declarations mix unruly in his mind, and he turns steadily more green until finally—after what feels like forever—he arrives at the airport. He's barely out of the car before he hears his codename being called.

"Wren?"

Snapping his head around in an attempt to find where the voice is coming from, Sonny stops looking when his wild eyes fall on a blond man with a green cap.

Justin gawks at him. "What on Earth are you doing here?" Approaching, he continues. "You look a sight. What's happened to you?"

"I thought I could figure out how to drive a boat. I mean, I did figure it out without crashing or anything, but all in all it's an experience I'm not looking to repeat. The doing it without a boating license, I mean. I fully intend to drive a boat someday." Sonny takes a deep breath, realizing he hasn't been breathing, and begins to feel lightheaded. "I really think that one of our phones was hacked. Did Infinitum send an uncoded message?"

Throughout this confession Justin starts to look exactly how Sonny feels. By the time he opens his mouth to respond, Sonny feels his arm being grabbed and a very stiff, very female voice clearing her throat.

Sonny flinches before turning around. "Whoa. That was fast," he offers with a smile and a kiss on the forehead. "Hiiiiiiii."

"Nan—Kestrel," Justin stutters, a blush starting at his cheeks. "What are you doing here?"

Nancy looks at him as though he's the one with three heads rather than Cerberus. After a few seconds, she says, "I was responding to your message. Or, actually, Zoe's."

His brow starts to furrow. "But—"

"Jesus Christ!" barks yet another approaching voice. "What are you losers doing here? You know where you're supposed to be."

"Zoe!" Colin attempts to blink away his shock. "Aren't you supposed to be in Milan?"

"Pluto—the sapphire guy—Pluto doubled back. His plane stopped somewhere before Milan, and he got off there. By the time I managed to find him in Helsinki, he was wiping the blood off his hands and booking a flight back to Seattle."

"Whom did he k—" Justin begins.

"Where I'm supposed to be?" Nancy cuts in with a snarl. "Don't leave the house until you tell me it's okay? Yeah, that doesn't exactly work for me. And I just happen to be dealing with a renegade who came out here before I could stop him."

Zoe only blinks in response.

Noting that Zoe isn't engaging in an argument with her, Nancy is stunned into silence.

"This is weird," Zoe says.

"I didn't send you any message." Justin puts in, turning to Zoe. "Did you?"

"No." Zoe glowers. "Well, this is just wonderful."

"Why would've they hacked us?" Sonny asks. "I mean, gaining intelligence, I understand that, but actually sending a message?"

"What did the message say?" Justin looks at Zoe for input.

Nancy shows him her phone. "Hades in the city. Watch your back."

Pursing her lips in thought, Zoe nods slowly. "This is bad," she says. "And I think…"

Everybody falls silent, watching things snap into place in her mind.

Sonny is almost completely lost. Besides the technological intelligence aspects—namely that yes, the phone was hacked—he's got nothing. So now he's staring at all the more strategically-minded people like his life depends on it... and truthfully, it probably does.

"And I called you on that phone earlier," Nancy adds, "so that may or may not have been overheard."

"Thankfully you didn't reveal anything important. So now that we're all together again like a happy family, they're going to try to kill us. I'm just trying to figure out how and what we do to not get killed. For starters, Kestrel," she holds out her hand, "give me the compromised phone."

Nancy does so.

Zoe drops it on the ground, digs her heel into it, and flings it into a nearby trashcan. "Done. All right. Now let's—" her eyes widen at something over Sonny's shoulder. "Blend in. Whatever you do, walk. Don't run." She turns to Justin, gesturing to Sonny. "Get him out of here. I've got Kestrel."

Justin's shock manifests plainly. "But what about safety in numbers—"

"This is the exception. That's what Thanos wants. Numbers. Casualties. Go. Don't ask questions. Go!"


	6. Chapter 6

The rare urgency in Zoe's voice gets them all moving.

Briefly Justin draws Zoe aside. "Operation Blitz?" Nancy hears him ask.

Zoe nods.

After that inquiry he leaves with Sonny, approaching one of the many glass doors lining the front of the airport and passing through them.

Nancy watches them trail off with growing apprehension.

"He'll be fine." Zoe starts walking while putting on a pair of sunglasses (spyglasses, Nancy guesses), motioning Nancy to follow her. "Just as long as K2 can keep him away from boats he can't drive. We'll just stay a safe distance behind." After walking for a quarter mile, they burst into SeaTac suburb. The area, normally quiet, is teeming with travelers.

"Must be some holiday or something." Nancy muses. She turns to Zoe, and her voice lowers. "What did you see?"

"Our buddy Hades. K2 and Wren will retreat to a safe spot where they can track his communications with Cerberus. Normally they'd be able to get the results to us, but since our own devices are compromised, we'll have to wait until later to see them. Right now, our plan is to sneak up on him."

"Sneak up? On Hades?"

"It'll keep him away from Sonny, it'll keep him in clear sight of us, and we might even catch him now. Win-win-win."

They follow Sonny and Justin into a small park, staying 100 yards behind them on the footpath.

"Do you have enough evidence for the charges to hold?" Nancy asks.

"Almost, although right now it's more by proxy. Prison murders aren't a big deal to the courts, so it has to be something else—and Pluto murdered a civilian witness yesterday. If I can find a stronger association between Hades and Pluto, it'll work."

"And where are you hoping to find that association?"

"From K2 and Wren's intelligence. We'll have to tweak our counterintelligence first, make it a bit more solid, refrain from overreaching at a time when we're less defensible. But with a little luck and help from that risk-taking boyfriend of yours, we'll get to a point soon where we can crack Team Thanos wide open."

"Sounds like you won't be able to do much if we do catch him now."

"Better sooner than later. We'll make room for him."

Nancy frowns doubtfully.

"Look," Zoe sighs, "I have enough clout with my people to bend the rules every now and then. If we get him in custody, they're not going to make me let him go. He's already a person of interest because of those two people he killed for Kronos a while ago. Right now we have de facto knowledge that he's killing people, which is enough for our organization. Especially since you're also a person of interest to us as an asset, and we know for a fact that he's after you. So we need to keep him from getting to you and other witnesses to his art heist spiel at the Phideas Cultural Center last year."

Nancy sniggers. "When was I ever an asset to you?"

The park turns into a mini restaurant district, and Justin and Sonny melt into a crowd of hungry people. No matter how hard Nancy strains her eyes open and unblinking, she can't find the dark red spikes in Sonny's hair. With the rest of his hair black, it's less conspicuous than normal. For the first time in her life, Nancy wishes he'd dyed it a wilder assortment of colors.

"You as an asset: my boss's words, not mine," Zoe continues. "You weren't just helping Cathedral in Glasgow, you know. And while I just love this chit-chat, we've got to talk less and start looking for Hades. Keep walking and keep watching."

For a few seconds Nancy doesn't see Thanos. Finally his tall frame comes into her vision when she and Zoe round a corner and end up in a huge square packed with people. ("What is this? A St. Patrick's Day parade?" Zoe comments.) He's walking forward from a fountain amidst a group around 300 yards in front of them, head standing high over others in the throng.

Then her eyes fall on Justin and Sonny sitting at an outdoor table at Foods Fundamental.

"You don't know them," Zoe mutters. "Don't look at them for their safety and yours. Whatever you do, don't lose sight of Hades."

Sonny catches Nancy's eyes just before she turns away. Absently she rubs her fingers over her neck where his magnifying glass necklace would've been had she not forgotten it. Being rushed out of their apartment was bad enough on its own without her leaving something so important behind.

Nancy and Zoe get close enough to see individual hairs on Thanos' head. Granted, it isn't that close, and Zoe is using spyglasses with enhanced vision (as she proudly informs Nancy), but it's still something.

Putting her mouth next to Zoe's ear, Nancy whispers, "So what's going to happen now? You going to jump on him or something?"

"As if. We're going to do this the right way. I've got a tranquilizer dart lent me from a zookeeper."

Nancy eyes her sidelong. "That's the right way?"

"For us it is. Now shhhh!"

"One more thing, then I'll be quiet. Who was the civilian Pluto murdered?"

"A Phideas Cultural Center employee, Stavros Mikos. He was there for the performance you busted."

"Wouldn't that be the link you need between Hades and Pluto?"

"So far, it's circumstantial. Mikos didn't even witness the robbery, so as far as my people are concerned, it still could be a coincidence."

Thanos leads them a quarter of the way across the square while he reaches the far side of it. Then he disappears down a narrow street.

"Should we… you know, run after him?" Nancy asks. "I don't think the walking is getting us anywhere."

"Maybe not, but running might get us dead." Zoe firmly takes her arm. "As far as I know, Thanos has two known associates. Not only do I not know where either of them are and whether or not they're armed with sniper rifles, but I don't even know for sure that he only has two. So unless you want your boyfriend crying at your funeral, I think you should listen to what I'm telling you to do."

Nancy tries to shake Zoe's hand off her elbow. "You can trust me, you know. I'm not going to do anything as stupid as you seem to think I'm capable of."

Chuckling, Zoe replies, "Yeah, you can be pretty stupid. But lucky for you I'm used to hanging around people doing stupid things thanks to K2."

Nancy shakes her head. "I still can't believe you two work together. You're so…"

"Different? I know. But if I had to deal with someone who was exactly the same way as me I'd probably die of boredom. Literally. By becoming lazy and inattentive because boring is worse than harrowing. The best way to learn to survive is to get thrown in the gladiator ring."

"Or dive into a river with crocodiles in it, right?"

Zoe looks at her in surprise. "Where'd you hear that?"

"From an Egyptian archaeologist."

"That's a little more foreboding than I typically take you for. I mean, you're always so peppy—even when you were dealing with your mom's death you were super nice and everything. To Bridget, anyway. Are you a morning person or something?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Morning people's enthusiasm bleeds into their conduct for the rest of the day. Their overly-cheerful conduct. And speaking of mornings, you'll have to get up tomorrow morning. Wherever today goes, I have a feeling that it's going to drag into tomorrow."

"Well, that's good." Nancy says, keeping her expression cool. "I don't really like being cooped up in the safe house, you know. And I noticed Sonny got to go into the field before I did."

"Yeah. I was scoping out your university to make sure Hades didn't have designs on nabbing you there," Zoe replies with an unaffected air. "The weird thing about this assignment is that you're helping us while we're simultaneously protecting you. That's why we're only bringing you out at the most strategic times. It's to keep you safe. Otherwise—Murphy's Law—Hades will find you and you will die. It won't be an enjoyable day for any of us, especially Wren and K2."

"Wren and—wait." Nancy almost stops walking. "What does Jus—I mean, K2—have to do with that?"

"Did I say K2? I meant the mountain K2, which will be sad to lose you and…" Zoe grimaces and sighs, air cutting past her teeth. "well, don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. I'm too busy trying to track down Hades' location with just my brainpower to rely on. Leaves no time for being polite."

"You?" Nancy snorts. "Polite? Perish the thought."

"I really wish our devices weren't compromised! K2 might've given me a million hints on Hades' location by now. And I can't risk sending code, either."

"Why not? They won't be able to decode it anytime soon, and we might be able to catch him in that time."

"Even if they don't decode it in a timely manner, they still have a copy of our code as reference for our future transactions. If they know what type of code we use, they have the pattern for the rest of our codes, which puts us at a severe disadvantage. The one we're using right now—Vigenère Square—is ad hoc, primitive, and technically breakable. In fact, it was only supposed to be a temporary code, but things materialized quickly. We could always change the codes after today, use a stronger one, but that would slow us all down because we'd have to one—create them and two—memorize them."

Nancy goes silent as she takes this information in.

"I'm willing to do that, change the coding, but only as a defensive method—as in, if our lives are in danger. And right now, they aren't."

Eyes hardening, Nancy turns her neck and tries to meet Zoe's gaze as it returns forward. "We need to catch Hades, and we need to catch him now."

"Hold your horses, Kestrel." Zoe says, brushing off the argument bait with a wave of her hand. "All in due time. Espionage is like comedy. It's all about timing."

"Yeah, well, there's nothing funny about this."

"Hah! You're telling me. If you die, I need to find somebody else to pester." Zoe turns to her, suddenly serious. "And you will if you act rash."

"Fine, fine," Nancy grumbles. "I'll listen to you, once again against my better judgment."

A trace of a smile captures Zoe's lips. But suddenly her head jerks upright and it's gone. "Heads up," she says.

Nancy sees a suspicious figure sitting in a restaurant chair just ahead of them: a short, heavy woman with sandy blonde hair with her head angled down but her eyes trained on Zoe and Nancy. As soon as Nancy looks, the woman's gaze flickers away.

"You're on Mystery Woman duty. Find a way to not keep looking behind you so she doesn't find out we notice her. Keep an eye on her while I keep an eye on—yes. The boy is back in town."

Reaching into her purse, Nancy pulls out a compact mirror and snaps it open as she and Zoe walk past. In the reflection she sees the woman rise and start taking long strides forward, never too far away from them.

"He's back in the square. Hades is back in the square." Zoe's voice speeds up and lowers slightly in pitch in a conscious effort to keep her voice down—a process with which Nancy is entirely familiar. "This is really weird. I'm going to start looking for a way out in case we need to use it. But right now, we're stuck."

"The woman you saw," Nancy begins, changing the subject. "Is she Cerberus?"

"No. K2 can get you a picture of her later so you know. This one is different." Zoe's lips purse as Thanos gets farther and farther away.

"Another possible accomplice," Nancy says to herself.

"Possible? Let's go with 'probable.'"

"Are you losing Hades again?"

"Sadly yes. But that's not your problem. I'll figure something out."

"That person's still following us."

"Okay. We're going to make a stop up here, then. See if she passes." Zoe nods toward an Italian sandwich shop on their right.

"If she doesn't pass?"

"We can take her. If Hades doubles back…" Zoe trails off. "Hmmm."

"Okay, I just lost our woman. Maybe—oh, wait, no. There she is."

Gritting her teeth, Zoe blinks several times. "Where are you, Hades?"

"I think I see hi—"

"No. Focus on your tail. We need backup," Zoe mutters to herself. She whips out her phone and thumbs the text messaging app.

Nancy peers over her shoulder and watches as she types 315 DESTROY. "I thought that was a compromised phone?" Nancy says.

"Desperate times. Gotta take a chance." As soon as the text finishes sending, Zoe drops the phone in front of her and crunches it under her foot without ever slowing down.

"You're not taking many," Nancy notes.

"I know. Hence the singular. They'll get here soon."

"Who?"

Zoe rolls her eyes. "Who do you think, genius? And don't actually answer. We're too close to Hades' goons for comfort. And considering I've lost him yet again, I don't want to chance him—or anybody else—overhearing."

"So now what? No talking?"

"How about I talk, you listen?" Zoe smirks at Nancy's expression of protest. "It really is for your own good. Like right now, I just found us an out in case Hades is trying to trap us. See that trolley up ahead?"

A royal blue trolley stands dormant at a bus stop on the next block, difficult to miss. Nancy nods.

"Yeah. That's what we're doing. Hades won't kill us if we're with a bunch of other people. He's out of his turf, and I guarantee you that he doesn't want to make a scene. If I say 'purple nurple,' we take off in that direction."

"Purple…?" Nancy trails off as her eyes meet the ground, which has transformed from asphalt into 12-inch bronze squares. Her eyes trail up to a stout stone cylinder and, from there, a spout birthing a mushroom cloud of water. She turns to Zoe. "Keep going?"

"Y—" Zoe gets cut off when someone bumps into her, jostling her purse.

Nancy stares. It's the woman who's been following them all this time.

Zoe grabs her arm, jerking her backward. With her free hand she throws her purse into the fountain. "Who sent you?"

A tall torso Nancy hasn't seen since Greece catches her eye. She looks up to the face.

Thanos gazes at her from the opposite street with a one-sided sneer. He can't be more than twenty yards away.

"Uh… hey," she nudges Zoe's elbow.

"Who sent you?" Zoe repeats, grabbing the woman's other arm as she tries to break free.

People begin gathering. Including—

Nancy's heart stops—

Sonny and Justin approach from the other side of the fountain. Sonny's startled eyes halt on Nancy while Justin's attention snaps to the woman writhing around in Zoe's arms. He continues walking toward them.

Zoe's head snaps up at the sight of Justin. "Get back!" she shrills as the woman's liberation endeavors rock her back and forth. She tightens her grip. "Get back now!"

Sonny's eyes widen in terror. He curves twenty feet around the fountain, making a beeline toward Nancy.

Justin, already closest to the front of the fountain, picks up the pace.

And the air compresses in an explosion of fire, stone, and water.

Instinctively Nancy pushes all five of her senses to full power, knowing that the smoke will take a while to clear.

"Goddamn it!" Zoe yells.

The woman slumps to her shoulder.

Sonny literally crashes into Nancy, and her relief is twofold at his healthy state plus the realization that the ground is probably the safest place for them right now. For the thirty seconds or so she has in these opaque surroundings, Nancy buries her head in his shoulder and relishes his hand on the back of her neck. Neither says anything.

Her responsibilities return too soon along with the visibility.

Justin's limp body lies next to the fountain.

"You go tend to him!" Zoe shouts to Nancy. "You," she locks eyes with Sonny, "Stay put. We might need an ambulance."

Nancy scrambles over to feel for a pulse. But as she raises her hand to do so, she hears a raspy voice behind her say, "You won't win."

Closing her fingers around Justin's wrist, she scoots around and watches.

The mysterious woman quivers in Zoe's arms. Her mouth, mostly limited to gasping, can barely form words. "Cyanide pill," Nancy hears Zoe say.

And she, too, goes still.


	7. Chapter 7

"Well. That didn't turn out as planned."

The usual levity is in Zoe's tone, but Nancy notices the tension that underscores it. Her hands go tighter around the steering wheel of the car she drove to Seattle-Tacoma. If Zoe isn't calm, then none of them should be. Sonny, pensively looking in the rear view side mirror, turns to look at her—she feels it—but Nancy doesn't dare avert her eyes from the road. Thanos could still be around. And with his track record, it's likely.

"Step on it, will you?" Zoe pipes up again from the back. "He's still unconscious."

"Nothing but superficial lacerations," Sonny murmurs. "There's that at least."

Nancy starts at the sound of his voice; she hadn't thought he'd been paying attention. "The unconsciousness indicates a concussion, though."

"Yeah, which is why—" Nancy hears rustling, presumably Zoe leaning forward in her seat. "How fast are you going? 55? Fuck that. The speed limit's 55."

"Right," Nancy replies evenly. As many laws as she's broken in her sleuthing, Nancy has always been uncomfortable with disobeying the rules of the road. That could easily result in somebody else getting hurt.

"65. Justin and I override anything the cops have to say."

"Yeah, but even if they stop us and let us go shortly afterward, it's still wasted time."

"It's less wasted time," Zoe argues. Successfully, Nancy has to admit.

So this time, she goes with the truth. "I really don't want an accident on my hands."

"This is not the time for caution. I need you to drive like an asshole right now."

"Kind of like you're driving me crazy like an asshole right now?" Nancy shoots back before she can stop herself. Arguing has always been her and Zoe's element, and it had never before been inappropriate—even during urgent tasks, such as when she was diffusing a bomb in Scotland.

Silence. Zoe's probably bristling. "Look, the only reason I'm not in the driver's seat is that I need to keep an eye on K2. Both eyes. Knowing him, he's probably going to try to find a way to die on me out of spite."

"Nobody's going to die," Sonny says firmly. Nancy sees his fists clench in her peripheral vision.

"Thanks for the optimism," Zoe replies, "and I share your confidence. As long as you stay away from boats from now on, we're all going to be fine."

He laughs for good measure.

Nancy bites back an instinctive rebuttal.

"So that girl," Sonny begins, voice shaking as he returns to that mindset. "What happened? How did she…" he trails off.

"I don't know if you're ever heard of the L-pill, but lots of spies have been using them since World War II. If they were captured, they had the option to die relatively painlessly before they were tortured. Our woman had one of them. She put a grenade in my purse, and when I caught her, she took the pill to avoid giving me information under duress."

"Shouldn't that bomb have killed us?" Nancy asks. "A normal explosive device would not have been hampered by the fountain."

"You're right. It wasn't a normal explosive device. It was a compression grenade, which is designed to avoid dispersing shrapnel so it wouldn't hurt Thanos and his buddies, who were also in proximity. Also, like I said, he doesn't have enough clout in this country to be able to kill bystanders and get away with it. In Greece, maybe. But not here."

For a second Nancy is silent as she takes this in. "Fine, but how does that tie into the phone message 'Hades in the city, watch your back?'"

"The phone was hacked," Sonny answers flatly. "That was supposed to bring us together. It didn't even really matter whether we knew it was hacked, since we still would have gathered if we did know, and that would have served their purposes just as well. In getting all of us at once."

Nancy meets Zoe's eyes through the rearview. "That true?"

"Yeah," she responds. "More or less. Especially with that wild goose chase Thanatos lead me on, bringing me right back to Seattle. They wanted me in an agitated state so I would be distracted from what they were doing. Luckily, I wasn't."

Sonny's eyes turn somber in the silence that follows. There's a question swimming in his eyes, Nancy sees as she glances over at him, but his face is conflicted. "What I can't figure out…" he begins, trailing off.

"Yeah?" Nancy prompts softly.

"Why didn't it actually deploy when all four of us weren't together?"

"Yeah." Nancy frowns, this question prompting another in her mind. "And why not when we were all at the airport?"

"One question at a time, please." Zoe turns and shoves Justin's shoulder for the seventh time in five minutes. "K2. Oi." When he doesn't respond, her lips tighten together and she returns her attention to Nancy. "Thanos and his associates use that airport a lot, as we know. Probably he didn't want to chance any destruction there because that would mean more security for everybody, including Thanos."

"Hmmm." Nancy's mind snaps back to the road.

"Drive faster, Nancy," Zoe repeats. "You're not going to cause any accidents by going over the speed limit. We're on the fucking freeway."

"Fine," she snaps.

The speedometer needle leaps 45 degrees to the right, and Zoe finally sits back in her seat. "As for why we weren't close together when the grenade deployed, Sonny, I can only guess. Maybe the detonation timer was overridden by the woman who bumped into us with the reasoning that offing Nancy and me was better than offing nobody at all. After all, we're the individuals who pose the most danger to Thanos."

"That does make sense," Nancy puts in. Her eyes go instinctively to Sonny, who is turning a shade of artichoke that would be aesthetically pleasing anywhere else but on a person's face. Flinching, she redirects her gaze to the only other conscious person in the car. But Zoe is firmly looking at Justin's limp body curled in the fetal position against the window, and she's going a very similar color. "Right," Nancy says to herself.

"I think he got hit with water more than chunks of the fountain, since there are hardly any marks on him." Zoe changes the subject.

"That's great," Nancy continues to muse. "But why'd Thanos stop there?"

"You mean, why did he not try to get to us in the dust and confusion that resulted? I don't know, and honestly, that's the only thing about this that really disturbs me aside from Justin Van Winkle here."

"Justin Van Winkle?" A groggy voice mutters. "But I'm not the one who's always complaining about needing more sleep, am I, Infinitum?"

"Well, good. You're finally up." Zoe shifts around in her seat to glare at him head-on. "What the actual fuck, K2? Don't you know what 'Get back?' means? I guess I was wrong to assume that you understand English even though it's your native language. Should've taken your word for it when you claimed you weren't good at languages."

"Hello to you too," Justin replies mildly before sitting up. "I say, where are we?"

"On our way to the hospital, thanks to your poor decision-making skills."

"In my defense, it looked like you needed help with that captive woman there."

"Not any more. She's dead."

"Oh." The soft amusement rising on his face falls abruptly again. "That's always my least favorite part of the job."

"Hence why I've never given you, nor expect or want you to take, an L-pill," Zoe replies grimly. "I've never liked them, either. It's not a good way to work. Having one of those things to pop before getting tortured is a safety curtain that prevents spies from developing resilience. Secrets get revealed under torture all the time in espionage. Swapping the lives and potential work of good spies for something that happens all the time is a bad trade."

"I hate hospitals, you know."

"Too bad, so sad." Zoe's voice, normally buoyant, is now sardonically flat. "You're going. And I'm one hundred percent not listening to any protests you have on the matter."

"I hate hospitals," Justin repeats.

"You have a concussion."

"I hate hospitals."

"Don't be petulant."

"If it's for my sake, then I have every right to refuse."

"Not when you're working with me."

"Infinitum, now is not the time to cross me."

"Wrong, K2. Now is not the time to cross me."

A few tense seconds pass. Then Zoe, as if sensing she was too harsh, adds: "It's just for a checkup. Won't take long."

"It'll take hours," he replies bitterly.

"Not if you say you have chest pain."

"I've put up with loads of your rubbish over the years, Zoe, but this is my head injury, I'm planting my foot down, and Nancy, please turn this car around."

"Don't listen to him," Zoe commands Nancy before returning to Justin. "Hello?! Head injury! Ergo, bad judgment. I'd rebuke you for acting nuts if you were relatively in your right mind. And FYI it's difficult not to since insanity is your general disposition anyway. And," she leans back and crosses her arms smugly, "good luck getting Nancy to stop this car."

Nancy, having actively analyzed the situation since Justin's return to consciousness, now enters the conversation. "He's awake now, and the unconsciousness was the main concern. I've been hit in the head many times, so speaking from experience, he's probably okay."

"Nancy," Zoe's voice rises, "if you stop this car, so help me, you are on your own to deal with Thanos."

"That suits me fine." Nancy glowers at the dividing line. "Better than being locked up in that safe house not able to breathe until you tell me it's okay."

"Peace," Sonny says quietly. The calm authoritativeness in his voice keeps them all from speaking further, although the air stays dank with tension.

Another minute passes, and Nancy pulls up to the entrance of the hospital. "I'll worry about parking," she says to Zoe.

Zoe nods her thanks and ushers Justin out of the car.

Nancy continues to drive around, looking for a spot.

Sonny says nothing, even when she finds one and shifts into park.

Both face forward.

"Are you mad at me for the whole boat thing?" Sonny finally asks.

It's an odd question, a loaded one for sure. Feeling annoyance jolt through her, Nancy opens her mouth to say something sarcastic, something punitive, after the day they've all had.

She yawns, instead.

"Was…" Sonny fidgets in his seat, still avoiding her eyes. "Was that a hypothetical yawn, as in 'I've seen danger worse than that,' or what?"

"No. I'm actually really tired. And not much else." Nancy turns her head away to hide the surprise on her face. Outside, the cars don't leave shadows under the clouds. A crying adolescent girl and her mother embrace before heading to the hospital entrance. Returning to her mind's affairs, Nancy devises a backup plan: be angry at herself for not being rightfully angry at Sonny.

But the anger never comes.

"My intentions were good, but that doesn't really matter much as I discovered when I was actually out in the water."

"I'm guessing you won't do it again." Nancy turns to look at him, weary glance meeting contrite.

"Nope. Not going through that nightmare again."

"Okay. And me being curious, what exactly were your intentions?" Nancy tries her best to keep the judgment out of her voice.

Sonny still winces. "Since the communication devices were compromised, I thought I had to get to Infinitum and K2 and tell them that without using aforementioned communication devices to do so."

"And why didn't you wake me up?"

He squirms, looking away again. "In my defense, it sounds really stupid now but it didn't before. You don't get a lot of sleep, and I was working from the gut priority to not wake you up."

For another minute or so, Nancy doesn't speak. She must consider her response carefully, something she's still not entirely used to. Being rash with her words has a greater and longer-lasting set of circumstances when depression is involved, something she found out the hard way with Sonny. "What I'm about to tell you isn't a commentary on your past actions as much as it's advice to take in the future. First of all, as you probably now know, for something this important you wake me up. When we're each isolated from one another—and this goes for Zoe and Justin, too—things become more dangerous since we have a further distance to go to communicate when the communications devices are out."

Sonny's face pales, and his lips tighten. "So I put us all in danger."

"No. You only put yourself in danger and—well, it isn't 'only,' obviously, since you're important, but—"

"It is 'only' if I put anybody in mortal danger because I don't deserve to live if everybody else around me doesn't." He laughs harshly.

The sound is foreign to Nancy, who fights the urge to recoil.

"Pacific Run, right?" Sonny continues. "George's injury? You remember."

"Let's leave Pacific Run out of this. All I'll say on that is that you correctly said you made sure that everybody was aware of the danger they'd be in if they competed. So that doesn't fit into your self-denigrating model, either. As for what happened today, I'm saying that under the right circumstances, if we're separated, it could be dangerous for each of us faring as individuals."

But her words aren't registering with him. Nancy can see it, and she can barely even see him now that he's shifting away from her. She doesn't know why; everything she's said thus far is unfailingly logical, and she doesn't get why it isn't helping and she doesn't get Sonny and the anger that hadn't come a second ago is coming full force now and she says, "Everything's okay, okay? Just calm down."

Sonny shakes his head, mumbles something, and hits the car door hard on his way out.

Nancy stays, sinking into bottomless despair.


	8. Chapter 8

A loud buzzing shatters Sonny's REM cycle. The white walls disorient him, and for a second Sonny thinks he's still dreaming, dreaming that he's in a hospital room and ten again and seriously infected again. Then he remembers that this sad-looking place is his current home and groggily reaches over Nancy's shoulder for his brand new disposable phone—Zoe had given them each a new batch last night—opening the messages.

_Up up up! Soon you'll have a visitor._

Nancy shifts and plucks her own phone from the nightstand. After a second she rolls over to face Sonny. "Zoe's coming here, I guess."

"Yeah, but why? She's never come here before."

"She probably wants a secure location where we can discuss the case—especially with what happened yesterday." Nancy rises, picking out a pair of jeans from the bureau. She slides them on and switches shirts. "I'm glad Justin's okay, though. Wonder if he's coming too."

Sonny lies back against the pillow, waiting for the cobwebs to clear from his mind.

Nancy doesn't rush him.

"How is it that you can wake up so fast? Like, right away?" Sonny asks her.

She laughs in response. "Lately I haven't been, I think because we've both been sleeping so little. So I just get up and do things and wait for the exhaustion to go away. Usually takes a good five minutes."

"That's still pretty good from where I'm sitting. Lying." Sonny yawns, and his eyes flutter closed. "I'm still half dreaming of Koko Kringle bars. They say you can't have withdrawals from those things. I know better."

"At least you're not frothing at the mouth."

"Oh, but I am. Metaphorically, anyway."

Sonny imagines her rolling her eyes.

"So what exactly did Zoe do when she scoped out Twin Udub the other day? Wouldn't she stick out like a sore thumb?"

"Well, I don't know if she went dressed as herself. And she told me she passed out pamphlets or something and then met a guy—"

Sonny sits bolt upright. "Pamphlets?"

Nancy, startled, turns to him and freezes. "Uh…"

"Jamila," he groans. "And it's not like I can contact her now after people just tried to kill us yesterday."

"Yeah, I wouldn't advise it. Wouldn't advise anything except lying low." Nancy sits on the edge of the bed, smoothing the blanket. "That's probably what Zoe is going to say. That the smallest gesture could disturb everything."

Sonny's laughter is high and strained. "Think there's any chance that my actual phone will be destroyed in combat? I really don't want to see any of those messages."

The sound of a door unlocking alerts them both to Zoe's arrival. Sonny finally gets up, rakes his hands through his hair, and makes his way toward the bureau as Nancy leaves. The same sinking feeling he's been suppressing around Nancy returns. He doesn't want to see Zoe, and he doesn't want to see Justin, or anybody else mixed up in this headache of a debacle. He'd rather see a notebook and his old phone, so he can chat with Jamila as he's drawing.

Oh wait, Jamila's mad at him, too.

Scratch that, then.

At least she isn't in danger because of him, though.

More sinking. It'd be tolerable if it weren't so aggravatingly slow. It's like the time he and Nancy had been stuck in quicksand. The memory takes over his mind, his body, and even now his shoes feel like they're somehow beneath the floor.

Sighing, Sonny changes while his imagination skips ahead of him, above ground, someplace more vibrant than this. Then, taking one last deep breath in solitude, he follows Nancy out the door.

Zoe and Nancy lean against the opposite wall in silence. "Nice hairdo," Zoe offers Sonny.

On a normal day Sonny would be embarrassed he didn't have time to style his hair. Today is already anything but normal. "Oddly enough, sleeping seemed more important than styling," he mutters monotone, avoiding both their eyes.

Raising her eyebrows, Zoe turns to look at Nancy.

Nancy clears her throat. "Are we meeting in the map room?"

"Read my mind." Zoe walks to the door at the end of the hallway and disappears behind it.

"She's really got that thumb scanner down, doesn't she?" Sonny comments. "It always takes me a minute."

"Are you all right?"

Summoning his usual level of energy, Sonny tosses her an indignant look. "Of course I'm all right! Just tired, since normally I have Koko Kringle bars around to help wake me up. You know that I can't live without sugar."

Nancy nods, concern yielding to concentration for what's to come, and follows Zoe to the second hallway.

Half of his heart rises, and half of it sinks (again).

Zoe's sitting at the far end of the map room while Nancy is just opposite the door. "Justin's fine, first of all," Zoe begins. "Minor concussion, no brain swelling or bleeding or anything. Doctors think he fell on his arm before hitting his head, which prevented anything too bad from happening to him. He's sleeping right now. I left some friends with him so Thanos doesn't get any ideas."

"That's good to hear." Sonny pulls a smile to his face.

"Next," Zoe continues, "we need to discuss Cerberus. Sonny, thanks for your recon while we were at the hospital last night."

"No problem," Sonny says, and it really hadn't been. He hated hospitals, and having some marginally challenging task to keep him busy had served him well. "Her phone is pretty easy to get to. Cerberus is clearly better at offensive strategies than defensive ones. Maybe that means that Thanos is in a hurry."

"That's exactly what it means." Zoe gives him a glance of approval. "He's out of his pond. Maybe there are a few Kronos people at his disposal here, but I'll bet that he's itching to move on to the next person on his hit list. The fact that the decompression grenade didn't work means that this is already taking longer than he wants it to, and he really has nothing to gain from tormenting Nancy."

"Wait a minute," Nancy interjects. "Isn't that kind of jumping to conclusions? What if Thanos really did mean to scare us and not kill us? When he looked at me at the fountain, it wasn't exactly an expression of defeat. And he could've gotten to us after the explosion because none of us could see."

"Sonny's hacks uncovered a correspondence to Thanos that said flat out that what happened yesterday wasn't meant to go down that way. One text, sent about five minutes after the fountain fiasco, said, 'I don't know what happened.' Another, sent an hour later, said, 'I can fix this. Let me fix this.'"

"The second message sounds scared," Sonny adds, "like she expects Thanos to not be happy."

"And she knows Thanos better than we know Thanos," Zoe continues. "I've also been thinking more about why Thanos didn't use the lack of visibility after the explosion to his advantage. Until this morning, I'd been operating under the assumption that he had a few people with him in the crowd. But now I don't think he had anybody with him, at least not close enough for them to help him before the smoke dispersed. It would've been him against three of us—excluding Justin, of course—and we were technically separated but still close to each other to jump to each others' defense. While we weren't able to see each other, we could hear each other just fine. Nancy, you went down with Sonny, so that's Thanos against two right there. And while I don't doubt that he could've killed both of you, he would not have been able to do it before the smoke dispersed. One extra person would slow him down at least for a bit. And if he had started attacking you and you cried out, I could've been there fighting him off in one second flat. So, things look a little more promising for us right now. Thanos doesn't have a ton of accessible allies. The only two we can confirm are Cerberus and the suicide. And the suicide might not even have been a real ally—maybe he just intimidated her into dropping something off somewhere."

"But what about that pill?" Nancy asks. "Why would an ordinary citizen be carrying around a kill pill? And why would she say, 'You won't win,' unless she were more invested in Thanos' plot? Dying is hard enough without talking through it."

"Admittedly, Nancy, I don't know. I just have trouble with the implication that he'd kill off one of his full-time spies when he, evidently, has few of them at his disposal. If what went down yesterday was indeed a sincere attempt to kill us, then he would've come with all his people, not just some of them."

"That's reassuring enough, but Cerberus hacked us yesterday," Nancy reminds her. "How do we know that she wasn't just anticipating us hacking her and making up messages?"

"Well, for starters, did you notice that yesterday's message, 'Hades in the city, watch your back,' was specific? Or at least it elicited a specific idea in your mind, which was to go to Seattle and carefully track him down. If they're going to release disinformation for our 'benefit,' they're going to be more specific to make sure that we're in the place they want us to be at the time they want us to be in it. The messages Sonny found yesterday were vague, just like our communications with each other are—even when they're in code."

"Were they coded? Ceberus' texts, I mean?"

"No. She and Thanos don't have the time to put into coding messages. Plus, they're not spies, and non-spies don't generally have a ton of codes at their disposal."

"But the message was so ambiguous. How on Earth did she know we would rendezvous at the airport just from 'the city?'"

"The location really didn't matter," Zoe replies. "When Cerberus hacked your phone, she also accessed your Location Services and followed you there—or Sonny, as it turned out. The message explicitly mentioned Thanos and told us he was in Seattle, so it was designed to bring us together so we could try bringing him into custody. Then, el-bombo."

"It didn't explicitly mention Thanos, though," Nancy replies, her brow furrowing. "It said 'Hades.' Isn't that odd?"

"A little. Cerberus possibly did that on Thanos' urging, since you, Nancy, know him as Hades." Zoe leans to the side and plants her elbow into the arm of the chair, propping up her head. "Can we move on now? We need to start planning ahead."

"One more thing."

Nancy's head rises in surprise, as does Zoe's.

Sonny, having spoken up for the first time in five minutes, continues: "How did you know about the bomb?"

"When people bump into you after following you around for a few minutes, it's automatically suspect. Spies develop a sixth sense for stuff like that."

Almost immediately after she replies, a song rends the air: "Bad blood,/The bitch is in her smile,/The lie is on her lips,/Such an evil child."

Nancy grins at the lyrics.

"Sorry. Need to get this." Zoe retrieves her shrilling phone and leaves the room.

Turning her smile to Sonny, Nancy says, "It's oddly fitting."

"Yeah."

"Are you still concerned about Jamila?"

"Um… oh yeah, I'd forgotten about that already." It never fails to amaze Sonny how Nancy can always remember where interrupted conversations left off, or how easily she can keep track of all the fine points of an argument even after a long-winded digression. "I guess I'm going to go with the principle, 'Out of sight, out of mind.' Try to go with it, anyway."

Zoe returns again, pocketing her phone. "Wrong number," she announces. "So where did we—"

"Wrong number?" Nancy and Sonny say in unison. "Very few people have your number," Nancy continues. "Shouldn't you be concerned?"

"I'll deal with it later."

"I can take a look at your phone and see what I can find out about the caller," Sonny offers. "I'll Star 69 them."

"Thanks but no thanks," Zoe replies crisply. "I'll deal with it. You have other assignments to worry about."

Nancy's eyes narrow. She and Sonny exchange another glance.

"Oh, please." Zoe rolls her eyes. "I promise that you aren't going to die as the result of a drunk dial. So Sonny. Now that we have hacking on our hands, you just became a lot more important. Now that Thanos and Thanatos are going to be here a while longer, they're going to start trying to cash in in on escape routes. We need to find out what exactly those plans are and subvert them. And by we, I mean you, since you did such a good job with that in New Zealand. Justin will help. So keep hacking Cerberus' devices, but now we also need to get to Thanos' phone and computer, as well."

Sonny nods. "Can do. And I also have an idea. Since Cerberus sent a false message to us, maybe I can try sending false messages to her. But first I'd study their communications a little more carefully and look for patterns."

"You're starting to think like a spy." Zoe's eyes glint with approval. "Awesome."

"Just tell me what to send him, anything from threatening notes to pictures of puppies, and I'll start raising hell."

"Aren't threatening notes a little out of your general oeuvre, hippie?"

"Well, I could send one of those messages where you can't tell whether they're sarcastic or sincere." Sonny replies, impassive.

Zoe chuckles, to his puzzlement. (He was being serious.) "Good man."

"And what am I going to be doing?" Nancy asks.

"We're going to check out all the places where Thanos was last seen, starting with that fountain at Sea-Tac. Sonny will stay here, and Justin will be coming as soon as he wakes up and is in his right mind and all that. Based on what they uncover, you and I will track down Thanos. Hopefully by tomorrow, but I'll settle for the day after—"

Zoe's phone begins ringing again. This time she doesn't leave the room to pick up. "Hel—Justin? Are you feeling better, then?"

Pause.

"You're headed here—you're here," Zoe continues, clearly repeating what he's saying. "You really need to work on that separation anxiety."

A garbled tenor responds.

Sonny strains his ears, and Nancy leans forward.

"You sent Hilda to the mainland? Why?" A second later her expression changes. She hangs up the phone, jaw set. "Stay here," she says tersely.

"What's going on?" Nancy asks.

"Stay here until I call you." Zoe leaves, soon followed by the sound of slamming doors. After she closes the last one, silence settles over the bunker.

Then an explosion rocks it to its core.


	9. Chapter 9

Nancy and Sonny exchange tense glances. He opens his mouth to say something before his phone unceremoniously rings. He picks up.

Trying to keep a sudden cold from creeping up her spine, Nancy stays rooted to her chair. For a second she wonders what's wrong with her. There had been worse scrapes than this. She'd been buried helplessly in an avalanche, for god's sake!

"Uh huh," Sonny says, looking as perturbed as Nancy feels. "What do you need me to do?"

"Zoe?" Nancy mouths to him.

Sonny nods in reply. "Shooters?" he continues to Zoe. "I just heard one explosion. Was that to lure us out or something?"

An unintelligible response follows.

Nancy attempts to focus her mind on the sound. Thanks to Sonny's concentration problems, the volume on his phone is usually high. But this time, either Zoe isn't loud enough, or she isn't focusing hard enough.

Suddenly Sonny's eyes fall on Nancy.

Surmising that she's the topic of conversation, Nancy reads his face for any other new information. There's worry for her, fear for himself, and an expression Nancy only recognized from almost having drowned one night in Iceland.

"Isn't she—" Sonny winces and turns in an attempt to avoid her scrutiny. "Isn't she safer with the rest of us?" he mutters.

Nancy can still hear.

And the direction this conversation is turning is starting to nauseate her.

"I don't have time for arguments, Wren!" Zoe's terse crescendo causes her words to rise from inaudible oblivion. "It's just me and Justin and three of my colleagues watching over him this morning, and we're outnumbered by at least two people. But we need you out here and we need you out here now."

Feeling her face, her ears, her body heat up, Nancy stifles the temptation to yell at Zoe that she's better equipped in dealing with these things and that Sonny should be the one staying inside.

"I have no idea what they're planning for Nancy," Zoe continues, fraught. "She needs to stay inside at all costs. That is the only defensible area right now, but it's on an island, and we need an escape route. That's why we need to get rid of the gunmen and then book it out of here. We have the advantage of knowing the terrain, so luck is on our side if you get out here soon. Put me on the phone with her."

Bounding forward, Nancy swipes the phone from Sonny's hand.

"Nancy, listen carefully. Go into the code room and type 'Achilleus' into the main computer. Hear how I'm pronouncing it? Not Achilles, Achilleus."

"You are not sending Sonny into that shitstorm out there."

Even with her intent concentration on the conversation, Nancy doesn't miss Sonny's head jolting up in surprise. She knows she doesn't swear a lot, but the current situation warrants it.

"Yes I am, but first he's going to go into the equipment room and get a bulletproof jacket. He'll be more protected than Justin or me. And Nancy, don't even suggest sharing it like they did in Titanic."

Sonny, having somehow heard this, leaves quickly. The door swings closed behind him with an energetic snap.

"If the jacket won't keep him safe, why is he wearing it?" Nancy works past the implication to finish the sentence.

"He's safer in it than you are," Zoe replies grimly. "The most dangerous part for him is when he's exiting the building, since for all they know it's you coming out. But they don't know where the entrances are, and I'm having him come out at the one that's closest to us. After they know it's him, he won't be half as much a target as you and I are. It's not the best of scenarios, but I can't think of anything better to do. If you can, now would be the time to tell me."

Nancy tries to blink away the dread. "Right. Achilleus."

"'Atta girl. Believe me, I'd rather have you out here on my side, but for all I know, these gunmen are just holding out until they kill you."

"Then send me out with the vest and let Sonny stay here."

"Hate to say it, but a bulletproof vest won't really help when they're chucking a grenade at your head. That explosion you heard a minute ago? That was a grenade, and it wasn't a compression grenade like before. This one threw a bunch of shrapnel around. I got a bit of it."

"You'll need to pull it out to avoid an infection."

Harsh sigh. "I know."

The back door of the bunker slams.

Nancy isn't prepared for this, not even a little. Maybe it was silly to think he'd come say goodbye in dire straits like this, but she thought there's be something before he—

She's too dizzy to finish the word.

"I'm going to do that thing you told me to do," she finally says numbly. The best cure to pain—the only one that ever worked for her—is distraction. A task.

"Be careful and don't come out here until further notice. Even if you didn't die I'd kill you later for it."

Nancy hangs up, gritting her teeth the moment she knows she doesn't have to talk anymore, and makes a beeline to the code room. She hasn't spent much time in here, and the eight-foot-wide screen still throws her sense of proportion off. On its left side is a thumbprint scanner identical to the ones on the doors, and Nancy slides her thumb vertically over it. The text messages Sonny recovered yesterday reign over the screen, with several memos and photos of Thanos and Thanatos trailing behind it. For a moment Nancy's eye is drawn to a blurry photo of a woman, brown hair tied into a modest bun at the nape of her neck, walking down Union Street. Only her white-clad back and a sliver of her face is visible, and the photo captured her in mid-step. "Cerberus?" Nancy guesses. Then, remembering what she came here for, she sits down, fingers poised over the keyboard, and types in the name of Troy's legendary destroyer.

Wait.

Destroye—

A spark causes her head to jolt up to the top right corner of the screen. It grows exponentially, setting off other sparks that rise with a thin trail of smoke.

Her heart, if possible, begins to ache more prominently. Now, on top of her boyfriend being out in the middle of danger, all the information related to this case—everything they'd worked so hard to gather—is lost.

Although—

Nancy shakes her head. No. She will not allow a desperate hope to compromise her rationality. She will not allow it. The feeling in her gut that contradicts her fear of it all being lost, it's not intuition. It's pure, blind, foolish hope, the same hope that didn't bring her mother back.

That may never bring Sonny back.

She shakes her head more vehemently. No. She mustn't think like that.

And the only way to avoid thinking like that is to get out there, no matter what Zoe had to say about it.

It's not like Nancy ever promised, after all.

Taking out one of her phones, Nancy enters Zoe's number into text messages. Ordinarily calling would be safer than texting, but any audible conversation on Zoe's part could give her position away.

But before she can type anything, there's an incoming call.

Nancy picks up.

"Grab two fire extinguishers. Use the back exit. Get out here and turn right. We'll cover you."

Click.

Well. Okay. Not breaking the rules will save her some animosity, Nancy grudgingly admits. Staying in the back hall, she heads for the gear room and grabs an extinguisher. She starts to make her way to the second door on the right. Then sudden inspiration hits her and she scurries back to the gear room to grab a flare gun. Nancy goes to the back entrance, takes a deep breath. Then opens the door and climbs a set of stairs leading to ground level.

The first thing Nancy sees is a patch of fire in the trees to her right, climbing approximately five feet and devouring the trunks of several distinguished trees. It must be what the fire extinguishers are for, but staying out in the open to quench the flames will compromise her safety as well as that of the fire extinguishers, which, needless to say, aren't bullet- or grenade-proof. As instructed, she turns right and arrives at a cluster of low vegetation.

A hand with red fingernails and some scratches pops up over a bush. It then grabs Nancy's shirt and drags her down so roughly that she tumbles to the ground, face first.

Sputtering, Nancy sits back on her knees to face Zoe, who is sitting a head below her.

Nancy's eyes travel to a sizable crimson splotch on her shoulder.

Behind her stands a three-foot steel wall with several convex craters breaking up the smooth surface.

Bulletproof.

"Get down." Zoe swipes her hand at Nancy again, but Nancy leans backward and then to the side on her arm.

"I can move by myself, you know."

"Yeah, but you're moving like a sloth. You didn't notice right away that we're all reclining here, and you failed to join our vacation. I mean, if you want to get clipped, I guess that's your call."

A bullet sails past them into the bark of a tree behind them, proving Zoe's point for her.

"You're wounded," Nancy points out.

"Yeah," Zoe acknowledges. "We're trying to ignore it. The less I think about it, the less I resign myself to a victim mentality and hand in my badass-fighting-capabilities card."

"You're lucky you're not wounded yourself," Justin notes.

"Is your head feeling better?" Nancy asks him.

"Oh, yes." He waves a hand. "Trivial."

Nancy's eyes fall on Sonny, who is the only one not to speak. He nods a greeting at her, like they're strangers.

The distance doesn't please her, but she plays along for the meantime. "Guess what I brought?" Nancy pulls out the flare gun and places it next to the fire extinguishers.

"Hmmm. Interesting." Zoe purses her lips. "What's it for?"

"Well, I figured that if we're grossly outnumbered, we can always shoot the ground in front of us—a safe distance away, of course—and make a beeline for the boats. At least one of them isn't damaged, right?"

"That's some first class thinking right there," Zoe says crisply. "I'm privileged to call you an ally."

"So," Nancy looks around the vicinity. "Where are those friends of yours who came out with Justin?"

"They're spread out in stations around the island. They all know what they're doing and were confident enough to split up. In fact, they did it without my asking them to. Maybe I can reinvent the term "Nancy boy" to "spies of the male gender who don't listen to me, just like a certain private detective I know." Zoe tries to sit up and winces, more blood pouring out of her blouse. "Hey Justin, how do you feel about parting with the sleeve of your shirt?"

Justin yanks at his left sleeve, making faces of exertion that increase in intensity at every failure. Finally he just takes the whole shirt off and gives it to Zoe. "One time offer," he says.

"Suits me fine," Zoe shoots back. "You're so weird you probably secrete some toxic acid that will infect my wound, anyway."

"Good to see your tongue isn't wounded." He moves to her side to help her wrap the cloth around her collar.

"Yeah, well, when is it ever?" Zoe turns back to Nancy. "On the bright side, I was right. There are only about three shooters judging from the volume of the gunfire, but all three of them have automatic weapons. Only the best from Kronos."

"I'm also fairly sure that one of them is Thanatos, but I only caught a glimpse," Justin added. "And—"

Another round of gunfire comes perilously near them, and Justin pulls out his gun and fires several rounds in the direction of the sound.

Dully Nancy notices that the sound is different than that of most guns. Maybe it's a new, high-tech silencer, Nancy thinks.

Zoe huffs in impatience. "You know what J-schlub did this time?"

After trying for a few seconds to guess, Nancy shakes her head.

"He brought a stun gun to a Tommy gun party."

"I couldn't tell the difference," Justin admits sheepishly. "Nobody carries them in England, you know."

"I taught you the difference!" Zoe glares at him. "And you haven't been back to England since we met." Her voice rises, but not for long: soon Zoe's hand goes to press her shoulder, her face twisting in pain. Then she bursts into sudden, slightly-forced laughter.

Sonny, who clearly also didn't know the difference, opens his eyes wide. Shock manifests clearly on his face, followed soon by vexation. "You covered Nancy with a stun gun?"

"Well, I didn't get hit," Nancy points out, moving through her own surprise to respond.

"You covered my girlfriend with a stun gun," Sonny continues, eyes cooling to subzero temperatures. "It's a wonder she isn't dead."

"I—" Justin goes stricken. "I didn't think of that."

"As much as I'm displeased with Justin and will severely berate him later, at least things turned out all right. There are other things to worry about" There's a note of finality to Zoe's voice, and that's the last of the discussion about Justin's perceived ineptitude.

In fact, it's the last of the discussion for a while. The cracks of gunfire thicken the air, leaving few intervals of quiet between rounds. Instead they overlap, the shooters clearly combining their efforts into a merciless rain of lead and ringing ears.

Meanwhile, Justin listens. Nancy watches his eyes snap into focus every time the gunfire grows quieter, every time a shooter drops out to reload, or—gold to him—when two shooters drop out, leaving one ringing vulnerable from a discernable location. It's during these times when Justin takes his aim.

It pays off, Nancy notices as the shooting becomes still quieter.

"I think I 'clipped' one of them, to borrow Zoe's jargon," Justin says. "I do hope I did, although at the same time I hope I didn't."

Zoe turns to him as quickly as her shoulder allows. "Why? It's a stun gun, for chr—"

"I just don't like hurting people."

"I didn't have time to arm myself and here you are out here with a stun gun," Zoe grumbles. "Luckily my friends had better sense than you…" her eyes sharpen. "As a matter of fact, why didn't they set you straight?"

"I, uh…" Justin peers slightly over the bushes. "I don't know."

"Really?" Nancy asks, a pointed tone to her question. Even if Zoe is too injured to call him on a lie, that doesn't mean that she herself should let it slide. In times of peril, allies must be honest with each other. That alone will increase their chances of survival the greatest.

Justin shakes his head and sighs, going silent as another shooter drops out and he fires the stun gun in turn. Nancy is about to prompt him again when he finally speaks: "Zoe, your friends came quite unarmed. They were forced to rely on the guns we had stored at the Griffin Hotel, which—as you know—were only three, one for each of us and an extra. I believe there was some misunderstanding and they thought you would have enough, especially seeing as I was incapacitated by that head wound. As I was sleeping most of the time, I lost the game of musical chairs, so to speak. Shortly after waking up I received intelligence, as you know, that Thanos' men were headed here. To their credit, they were very apologetic when they handed me the stun gun. None of them treated it as a joke."

During this telling, Zoe steadily grows paler and paler. By the end, her lips are the color of chalk.

Relative silence. They wait for her to speak.

"They were supposed to protect you," she says quietly, shaking. More blood seeps from her wound, trickling down Justin's bunched shirt onto hers. "An official assignment. Clearly they didn't take it very seriously."

Nobody moves.

Nancy, for the first time, is actually afraid of Zoe.

"I am going to put them on probation and have the Director issue them a reprimand. And Justin?"

Bravely he meets her eyes.

"After we're done getting rid of the others, if you want to engage in a little friendly fire with that stun gun of yours, I will look the other way."

"Zoe, I don't think—"

"Your aim is bad enough so they wouldn't know the difference."

Periods of silence intersperse the periods of fire.

Only one shooter is left, reloading his gun without another to cover him.

"I believe that that was one of your friends who took him out," Justin says meekly. "I wasn't shooting just now, so—"

"I still say that each of them's in for a 'stunning' experience." Zoe looks at Nancy and tries to smile. "I liked that escape plan of yours, but it looks like we might not be needing it."

Nancy nods. They fall into another silence, which reminds Nancy of how uncharacteristically quiet Sonny has been this whole time. She flips to her other side to look at him.

Sonny is slumped against the steel wall, head in his hands. His shoulders rise and fall at unequal intervals.

Her eyes return to Zoe, who mutters, "Go ahead."

Thanking her just as quietly, Nancy scoots to his side.

"So," Zoe addresses Justin. "Why'd you lie, K-Mart?"

"You know, I actually prefer the new one—what was it?—J-schlub." He chuckles. "I thought that you'd be less angry with me than with them, since you're used to me letting you down and rather expect stupid things of me. And you need a clear head to deal with these people. I do know you're fully capable of keeping a clear head of your own accord, but I wanted to make things as easy for you as possible. Incidentally, I was going to tell you before I arrived and saw you were shot." He pauses. "I'm sorry I didn't more accurately assess their distance from here. As it turned out, 'on their way' meant 'practically here already.'"

"That… is sound reasoning, I must admit," Zoe says with a hint of reluctance.

"Valid reasoning," Justin corrects with a smile, "because I suppose you don't agree but you see how I could have reasonably reached that conclusion. It's getting into semantics, I know, but I studied logic at university."

"So I guess sound reasoning is—" Zoe's voice begins to slur. "Right in all instances."

"Exactly. Much like you are."

She laughs weakly. "Let's head to the pub after this. Get some fish and chips like I'm sure you miss, and then we can discuss how the hell England keeps itself safe without guns."

"How very American of you."

"Yes, I'm sure."

Nancy listens to their conversation while running a hand over Sonny's hunched shoulders. Somewhere between yesterday and today, she remembered what the magic words for acknowledging grief were: silence.

After all, it was silence she craved most after her mother died. People never knew what to say and, despite having dealt with grief on her own, Nancy now knows she knows no better than they did. Grief is an innately personal, distinct experience.

She leans down next to his ear, placing her arms in the crooks of his elbows and joining them together in an embrace. "I love you," she whispers.

Nearby Justin makes a slightly strangled sound. Figuring that it's involuntary (Justin isn't the type to purposely draw attention to himself), Nancy takes pity on him and almost begins to apologize. Just in time she rebels against that proprietary instinct, knowing that she can't be sorry for this, won't be sorry for this.

And isn't sorry for this, she realizes with no small amount of relief.

"I hope that fellow I shot a few minutes ago doesn't wake up," Justin says, sounding as though he's just saying something for the sake of saying something. Embarrassment clings to his voice along with a hint of lingering emotion.

"Those stun guns we have stocked knock 'em out for a couple of hours. Besides, he'll think he was actually shot with an actual gun since no one but K2 uses stun guns in a fatal gunfight. Psychology is a powerful thing, I tell you."

Hours seem to pass, although Nancy observes that the sun doesn't rise significantly higher in the sky. Sun is a rare phenomenon in Seattle, and it has a habit of appearing at the most inappropriate times. Now it makes Zoe's blood shimmer, the image sending a jolt down Nancy's spine. Her ears continue to ring.

It's Justin who brings their attention to the fact that the area is silent and has been for some time now.

Sonny starts to rise.

"Don't," Zoe cautions.

He freezes in surprise. Nancy, too, is caught off guard. Zoe's eyes had been closed, and she had appeared unconscious to each of them.

"They could be faking us out and try shooting when we let down our guard."

But a cry of "Infinitum!" splits her caution in two.

Recognizing the voice, Justin stands and walks over to one of Zoe's colleagues. They exchange a cool greeting.

Nancy rises with a fire extinguisher. "Look after Zoe," she says to Sonny.

He lifts his head, revealing red handprints on his face and remarkably blank eyes.

She kneels again and kisses him, then grabs the other extinguisher and hands it to Justin. "Call more of your friends." she commands the colleague. "We need to put the fire out, and I doubt that Zoe wants civilian firefighters here."

He appears offended at the prospect of listening to a stranger, but Justin firmly says, "She's legitimate," takes an extinguisher while avoiding Nancy's eyes, and begins spraying it in the heart of the fire.

Fighting exhaustion before the flames, Nancy targets the edges to keep it from spreading.


	10. Chapter 10

All Justin's energy seeps out of him through the translucent path of the fire extinguisher. Seattle doesn't grace them with rain today, and even if it had, it would likely be mist rather than functioning droplets. Thinking that could technically be pessimistic, but he doesn't even try to fight it anymore lately. Besides, that type of "rain" is par for the course in the Pacific Northwest.

He never thought he'd miss England when he's lived the resplendence of Venice. But maybe even Venice couldn't save him from his doldrums.

Give him England with real rain daily at 5 PM like clockwork. Give him consistency. Give him a boss who doesn't hate him and a love that isn't terminally unrequited.

And, above all, give the lad a drink.

Although the fire doesn't grow thanks to Nancy's strategy of spraying around it, it doesn't shrink. And Zoe's "friends," he notes with some repressed annoyance, are chatting, waiting for more MI6 ad hoc firefighters to arrive. They'd placed the call quickly enough although now they seem to be under the impression that fire extinguishers (of which there were only two, and both in use) are the only means to ending a fire. It seems they cleared out all the would-be assassins, at least, which didn't entitle them to a break when there was no break to be had. He's tempted to chuck the fire extinguisher at them and use his shirt to help beat it out. But alas, he's still shirtless and hapless.

As luck'll have it, a tree will probably fall on him and render him injured for the second time within 24 hours.

Justin's vision begins to blur and gray. Because he doesn't feel particularly weak he chalks it up to the smoke itself and not the effect the smoke has on him. Smoke inhalation is much more of a problem indoors than outdoors. A smile quirks over his face. If conscious, Zoe would surely tell him how stupid he is all over again, that he's going to injure himself if he ignores his symptoms.

Some half-burned trees lumber down, bringing waves of cool air to his sweat-soaked body. And all Justin can think is that England doesn't suffer wildfires, and it certainly doesn't suffer fires begun from explosives or guns, and he wouldn't be in this pickle if he'd been a good boy, refrained from stealing artwork worth a small fortune, and not served a prison sentence.

Of course that scenario would necessitate that he and Zoe had never met. His refusal to her request had never been an option; she'd gotten him too riled up for that.

The wind begins pushing the fire away opposite him. Embers fly into the trees behind. Nancy is quick to spray at them. Briefly it flares higher, causing Justin's muscles to tense. More oxygen means more flame, and it's barely controllable as it is.

But the main flame devours the flare like a mouth reclaiming its tongue. Speaking of which, Justin now notices the taste of lead in the air. Whether it's from gunfire or blood, he doesn't know.

Another pocket of breeze materializes beside him. Justin aims his extinguisher at the opposite corner, expecting the wind to have changed again… until an arm comes into his frame of vision.

Justin looks over to his side. One of Zoe's MI6 colleagues has arrived with a fire extinguisher. The pair exchange curt nods and continue their work.

The fire dwindles to the size of a large car. Stray branches char and tear his arm, some still aflame. Justin decides that when the flame is no larger than his SMRT car, he'll deal with the rest himself and let Nancy help Sonny send Zoe off to the mainland for some minimalistic MI6 medical treatment.

It reaches that size, and smaller. Soon only a pocket of flame remains.

Justin pauses. Now that his arms are still, he notices that they're quite sore. His eyes dart around. Six more people are fighting the fire with six more extinguishers.

Another thick branch falls, scoring the skin down the left side of Justin's chest. The sting brings tears to his eyes. The emotional scorch on top of it nearly tears a scream out of him.

Instead Justin throws down the extinguisher and whirls around. He hurls his legs forward, pain like a creak in the door that quietens the faster you open it. Everybody's hands had been tied with the fire, Justin notices as he sees Zoe unmoved from her spot.

What surprises him is Sonny's stationary body next to hers. The stately angle of his eyelids place him in the league of the corpses of demi-gods. 'Wren' is suddenly a slight of a name for him who deserves the majesty of 'Infinitum,' 'Apollo,' or 'Achilles.'

The dryness from the fire finally arrives at his throat. He opens his mouth to alert Nancy.

Nothing comes out.

Swift footsteps sound behind.

Justin jolts around, hissing at the agony of the movement.

Titian's muse stands frozen, the perfect likeness of a corpse herself except her facial features arrayed in—oh Renoir, what he'd sooner tear his arm off and see—a wrenching combination of pain, horror, and helplessness.

"I don't know what—" Justin recoils at the sound of his own voice, hoarse and teeming with cracks. "I don't know what happened. I just found him like that."

"Sonny!" she soars to his side and begins shaking him. "Wake up!"

Kneeling at his other side, Justin grabs his wrists and takes his pulse. It's slow, a little bit weak, but steady.

Nancy's fingers dig into his chest. Her skin turns so white it's almost transparent.

If this is what love is, Justin has never felt it—not for Nancy, not for anyone. The realization, acting contrary to his expectations, only makes him more miserable.

Her eyes snap into a bestial ferocity, blue transforming to violet. "Turn him over," she says.

Justin complies.

Quickly she scans for bullet wounds below the Kevlar vest. Then she runs her hands through his crimson hair. "Is there blood?" Her mouth quakes on the question. "I can't tell."

"There's none on the ground. And if he were wounded, there would be."

There's no tangible relief in her face—her eyes skip all emotions, going straight to dulling. She sits back on her heels, chest heaving.

For a second Justin is afraid Nancy will faint too, but she seems to regain a presence of mind with the color returning to her cheeks.

They turn him back.

Sonny stirs and moans.

Both watch him intently. Some time later he opens his eyes.

Nancy throws her arms around him, or as around him as she can manage when he's firmly on the ground.

"Are you… crying?" Sonny asks, disoriented.

Nodding into his shoulder, Nancy doesn't say anything.

He lies there, stroking her hair affectionately, life returning slowly to his gaze. "I'm all right," he said softly. "See?"

Wordlessly Justin scoops Zoe's still-unconscious body into his chest, bringing her to her colleagues who have just finished with the fire. They leave with her, sending her boat chopping across the water. It would feel like a rain, at least. Maybe that and the breeze will revive her briefly before treatment. He picks up an abandoned fire extinguisher and sprays at the still-smoldering pieces of lumber. So many trees are down. It's a thankless job, and quite an unnecessary one. Even Nancy doesn't feel the need to join him, and he doesn't blame her a bit.

Hours pass before the smoke is gone completely.

Then Zoe is back at his side. He doesn't need to look, doesn't need to listen, just knows in the slight readjustment of air and Thanos' aphrodisiac of disinfectant and blood. She hands him back his shirt.

He takes it.

"You really outdid yourself this time, K2. The whole island could've gone up in flames. Hilda owes you some serious thanks. Not to mention me."

"So you may or may not owe me a favor, right?" Justin replies instead of thanking her. Gratitude is trite, especially between them.

Zoe laughs tiredly. "That's such an English way of putting it."

"How do you feel about changing Wren's code name?"

"Wh—" she turns to him. "Why? The 'unfit to print' type reason?"

"No, no," he says quickly. "That's your territory. But he's done so much for us and the mission and he shouldn't even have had to; he was mainly caught in the crossfire. So I'm thinking Patroclus would be fitting."

"Sticking with the Greek theme, huh?"

"Just a thought."

Zoe spends the next few minutes in silence. Just when he's sure she's dismissed the idea entirely, she says, "I hate to admit it, but you're a better person than I am."

He snorts. "Now, that's ludicrous."

"Hey, all I ever think about with code names is making them funny. You want to make them noble. Even if you happen to be in love with their girlfriends."

"I don't love Nancy. I never did."

If Zoe is tempted to contest this, she holds back. But Zoe never holds back. So maybe she believes him, as he said it with just as much conviction as his mosaics soaked up.

Together they make their way back to Sonny and Nancy, who are still sitting on the ground, heads together and murmuring.

Zoe throws them an imperious stare and holds up all of her fingers. "Five minutes, then the mainland," she commands. "You two need alternate living arrangements."

"Especially since you had me wipe all our info, right?" Nancy asks in a rough voice.

"Actually, what you did was delete it from the safe house and sent it to a more secure location where my pals can review it."

Time loses its edge. Exactly one hour and fifteen minutes later, the four are at Griffin Hotel.

Nancy and Sonny settle in the room next door on Zoe's strict insistence that they stick close together in order to be collectively ready at a moment's notice. The door is left ajar. Perhaps they don't notice.

Back in the room he shares with Zoe, Justin stands up very straight with his hand against the wall.

Zoe's in the bathroom again transforming into one of her aliai. He doesn't know why this time. Perhaps it's for fun.

The door crashes open and she comes out with dark hair and guns blazing. "So I know you're tired which means it's time to start kicking your ass into gear again K-Mart…" Zoe trails off when she sees the set frown on his face. "By going out and getting some drinks."

Nancy sniffles in the other room. "That's not a good way to deal with your problems," she says, loudly enough to be audible.

"Grow up, you prude," Zoe raises her voice. Unlike her normal insults, however, there's a harsher layer added to this one.

"Hey." Sonny barks after her. Through the door Justin can see him take Nancy's arm. His eyes soften when they fall back on her, and he pulls her into a loose embrace, pressing his lips against her forehead.

"Lighten up, lover boy. I was just kidding. Sheesh." Zoe slaps Justin's forearm and gestures for him to follow her. "They're stupider than you ever were," she mutters once they're out of earshot. "Come on. Let's get you some happy juice."

"Thought I wasn't supposed to drink until the assignment was over? And we're right in the thick of it." They walk out of the abandoned building, and Justin feels like he can breathe again.

"We can go to a karaoke bar and you can sing and pretend you're singing to a Renoir."

"Don't remind me." His tight, anguished voice trails after her.

"Hey, you never know, kiddo. You could meet the real love of your life in the next five minutes."

"In a bar?"

"A karaoke bar," she reminds. "You can sing together and have seven kids like the Von Trapp family."

"They didn't have seven kids. Maria Von Trapp adopted the seven kids and then had three more with the Captain."

"Shut up, smartass."

"Good luck getting me to, for a fact is a fact, which I'm obligated to point out—"

Suddenly Zoe lays an arm across his chest.

Justin stops.

In front of them stands a short woman with dark brown hair and weary green eyes. "I need your help," she begins with a heavy Greek accent, "Chloe."

All Zoe has to do is blink, and Chloe Katsaros is back with an accent even thicker than that of the native Greek in front of her. "Yassou, Niobe."

Justin, needless to say, is dully impressed.

"I heard about the fountain explosion and came out as soon as I could." the woman named Niobe says quietly, and her voice begins to tremble. "I will not allow Thanos to threaten any more lives. I will do anything, if you just let me help."

"Where have you been for the last ten months?" Zoe asks. "You worried me. I remember our friendship when I worked at the museum, quite well. The others in the theatre troupe, they were… obnoxious. Especially that officious little woman who had it in for you."

Niobe laughs, clearly feeling much the same way. "You've done much to protect me when Thanos was released from prison," she replies, growing serious again. "Now I ask you not to do that anymore. Teach me how best to fight back. Protect him from me, if need be."

Zoe studies her from the wrinkles in her forehead to the curled toes of her shoes. Her own forehead smooths along with her expression. "Of course, old friend."

Watching them both closely, Justin realizes that he's in the presence of two very fascinating women. Niobe is fascinating in ways he doesn't know yet but can sense. Zoe, in the softness of her eyes he's never seen before. Zoe is your textbook example of a misanthrope, liking no one (especially Justin), yet there remains some semblance of the cordiality in her alias that sinks back to her real, unaltered self. He can tell. In all the time she's known him, Zoe has never treated him with such respect.

Zoe turns. "This is my friend, Colin Baxter."

Surprised at her use of his alias rather than his real name, Justin glances at her before returning his gaze to Niobe.

"He is an artist, like you."

Niobe scoffs. "Like I was."

"Once an artist," Justin finds himself saying, "always one."

She smiles at him.

For a brief moment he feels himself falling into the sky.

"How apt."

And staring in idle puzzlement at his empty shoes on the sidewalk.

"Niobe," Zoe cuts in briefly, quietly.

Niobe's eyes shift to her.

She hands her a piece of paper. "This is my phone number. Call me whenever you need. I will help you, and so will Colin." Then she leaves, even more quickly than she normally does in people situations.

Irony abound since she gives all appearances of liking this person.

"Ah, so you are an associate," Niobe says to Justin.

Justin returns her smile but doesn't answer. Zoe has taught him to always exercise caution around new friends. "Sad story, your name," he says as a substitute. "Niobe lost seven sons and seven daughters. Everyone she had."

"For me, more seven paintings and seven paintings," Niobe jokes lightly.

"Ah. I vaguely know that feeling. Once upon a time, I was stupid." They walk to a nearby bench and sit. "Cost me my career back home. Just about cost me my career everywhere else."

Her eyes light up. "What a coincidence. Once upon a time, I was stupid too."

"Not stupid, no. I heard about it. You don't deserve what happened to you." Justin looks away. "Art should speak for itself. Doesn't matter whose name is signed on it—your art will gladly proclaim it's yours."

"If it even is mine," Niobe replies quietly. "What is bigger? The creator or her creation? Perhaps I only discovered it by accident."

"Modesty," Justin notes. "Refreshing for an artist of your stature."

They talk for hours, until all passersby dwindle off and the sun sets, until more hours later, when it rises.

Or maybe they have been somewhere else, talking not nearly so long a time. Justin has a hard time remembering.


	11. Chapter 11

No robins or bluejays sing at wayward hotels. They're scared away by the swoosh of cars, the misty rain that'll weigh down their wings so gradually that they sink without a guess as to why. The only sounds that occur are insular, tantalizing to a silent block of crumbling brick that seals in spies and their boredom and solitude.

Nancy is glad she's not a spy, at least not full time. Maybe that makes her a bad patriot or a bad daughter or something, but at least a few people in her life would be happy about it.

Sonny included.

The hotel lacks the tech room where Sonny spent most of his time, so Sonny is working at the desk in their bedroom. He hasn't noticed that she's awake yet. As always, he's angled the chair to shift more weight to his right arm while he draws with his left, making broad strokes with his pen. Delicate wrinkles hug the bridge of his nose, and he bites his lip.

It's moments like these that slow her down, remind her what she and he and Justin and Zoe are fighting for—minutes, hours, years where you don't have to always be doing something for some particular end, just that you like it and you like the company.

An angular figure turns into a caricature of Zoe with slanted eyes and the weird, wide cat eye she wears with shadow instead of liner. Swiftly he colors in her clothes with dark ink and short jerks of the pen. Then a speech bubble with some scribble that's indecipherable from a distance, surely conveying some snark directed at Nancy.

Justin materializes in much the same way, in straight, sharp lines everywhere except the eyes, mouth, and shoulders, which form round. Lighter pressure turns his clothes grey, a more-or-less accurate depiction of his chosen earth tones in black and white. But in what may be the biggest contrast to Zoe, he is silent.

Nancy watches Sonny add details to his hands, including nicks, stains, and bits of glue. They surprise her. She's lived long enough with Sonny to know that he isn't always the best at listening. But somehow this relatively small detail (in regards to the mission, anyway) of Justin being a mosaicist survived in his mind.

Normal people feel eyes, and normal people would have caught her watching them by now.

Sonny, of course, is the antithesis of normal. He gets so caught up in what he's doing that he doesn't notice or care how other people perceive him.

She loves it.

She loves him.

In the end it's this fact that betrays Nancy, since she chuckles at what once would've been the biggest instance of irony of her life.

"Nancy!" Sonny turns to look at her and drops the pen, smiling. "Zoe texted asking you to restock the 'technology' room here, but fear not: I took care of it."

Why he hadn't simply woken her up—again—is beyond her, although once before Sonny had let her sleep right through a study session because he'd told her that she needed the sleep. She'd thought he was being lazy until she saw the conscious sincerity in his expression.

"Reading my texts again, I see?" Nancy says, preferring not to bring up this point in their first relatively carefree conversation in days.

"Yeah. It gave me the confidence to want to take the boat out for a spin again. But I didn't."

Nancy's bare skin slips against the covers as she sits up, leans to the side, and picks up yesterday's clothes from the side of the bed.

"Thanks for the conversation last night, by the way." He meets her eyes briefly before returning to his drawing. "About not being sad and stuff."

"Or, you know, combating the sad when it happens."

He nods stiffly, mouth and brow taut with concentration. Now he's working on the next page of the notebook that Nancy can't see. He draws some jagged lines high on the page and holds it up to show, proudly tapping the central figure.

It's a vague likeness of herself in a suit of armor with a ponytail hanging out the back of the helmet, hurling a huge bucketful of water at a page full of flames, with a "Better than Poseidon!" caption below. For some reason Sonny doesn't like creating any concrete portrayals of her for his comic [note]books, saving the true likenesses for the private drawings on loose leaf paper or actual sketchbooks.

Nancy's lips quirk into a smile. "Pretty sure that's not how it happened."

"Well I was unconscious at the time and Justin might have embellished a few things."

She snickers. "Right. Justin did."

"Hey, to him you're a god or something. I know the feeling."

Even though they've been together for a while, Nancy still doesn't know how to respond. Receiving compliments has never been her strong suit. Finally she settles on the trite but true, "You're too kind."

His eyebrow slides upward. "That wasn't your response last night."

She feels herself blush. At least she doesn't have to dignify this with a response, unlike his last comment.

Sonny doesn't expect her to, either. He just laughs, shakes his head, and turns the page in his notebook and begins drawing again.

Unhurried, Nancy puts her clothes on piece by piece.

A few minutes later, Sonny closes the book and swings around in his chair. "I haven't heard anything from Justin or Zoe since they said they weren't coming back last night. Have you?"

"No. And I don't have the faintest idea what they're doing and it's bothering me. What happened to 'Let's stick together?'"

"Maybe it got buried with the seventies?" Sonny shrugs. "Joke aside though, I have no clue."

"And that phone call. No way that's a wrong number."

"Oh yeah. I forgot about that."

"Well, I'm not going to waste my time with Zoe right now. I'll go straight to Justin." Nancy pulls out her cell phone, dials, and waits.

"Hello. Any problems?"

Nancy blinks at the directness of the greeting, odd for Justin. "Zoe, uh, she briefed me on the new contact."

Congenial laughter meets her ears. "You'll have to do better than that. And for the record, I have no idea what you're talking about. That all?"

"How about the fact that Zoe left to take a call, was gone for more than a few seconds, and returned saying 'Wrong number?' and nothing other than that?"

"I wasn't there, and Infinitum doesn't tell me everything although I enjoy the compliment of that sentiment."

His response is too easy, too calculated, with flattery meant to derail the interview trajectory. Nancy pushes on. "I hope you know that this runs directly contrary to Zoe's rule that we stick together. The label 'hypocrite' is starting to look appropriate. Not to mention that my and my boyfriend's safety are compromised." It may be a bit of a low blow, the boyfriend mention, but dealing with his feelings is suddenly one too many irritants for her.

"We have people watching out for you," he replies, unaffected.

"I hope they're not the same people who forgot to come armed and didn't help us fight the fire," Nancy snaps.

"No," Justin says hastily. "Infinitum took care to mention it three times. They're suspended until further notice. You and Wren have the best of our resources and are safe. That I can personally guarantee."

"I'd believe you if you and Zoe could go to all the great trouble of letting us know about all of the relevant details to this case."

"I understand that you're upset, and recent communication has not been first rate. I will talk to her and thoroughly relay your concerns and my own. That's all I can do right now."

"Did you or did you not know that Zoe contacted others regarding this mission?"

"I'm not sure that information is accurate. I'll refer you to Zoe. Stand by your phone."

"That's not enough. You'll have to tell me the truth sooner or later, Justin, and we both know sooner is better."

"I know it's not enough. It never is, believe me. Be careful."

The line clicks.

Fury burns her throat. She should've done more. She should've gotten mean, reminded him that he lied about several important things in Venice including accidentally poisoning her. She should have reiterated the point that only the most irresponsible and immature people lied about major—and potentially life threatening, in this case—things.

"Maybe there's a good reason Zoe hasn't told us. Maybe she plans to tell us later."

Nancy turns to look at him, unblinking. "Don't tell me you're taking her side."

"Of course not. But Zoe is smart and—well, when you don't have a lot of control over events, sometimes it helps to just have a little bit of faith."

"No, it helps to read people." Immediately after saying it, Nancy recoils at her own thought, feeling the deja vu.

Hopefully Grigor is all right and this sudden borrowed inspiration isn't a sign he's already dead.

Some commotion outside draws Nancy's attention to the window. A man with shaggy dark hair and one of Zoe's tall, muscular spies—Nancy recognizes him from yesterday's arrival of more competent agents—are engaged in a loud conversation.

Well, the spy is loud, at least.

The other is soft-spoken.

Nancy bolts out the door, Sonny fast on her heels. In roughly fifteen seconds she's outside, staring down a person she remembers like she just saw him yesterday. Crossing her arms high over her chest, she asks, "What are you doing here, Rentaro?"

He turns to her, closing his eyes and inclining his head. "Nancy-san. It is good to see you again."

"How can you possibly know so many people?" Sonny asks her blankly.

"And you don't?" Nancy asks without removing her eyes from the newcomer. "I saw your name in the ryokan guest logs."

"That wasn't me. That was my mom and Grandpa Jin. Sent them on that trip together hoping they'd finally learn to get along."

"How did you find your way into the guest logs?" Rentaro chimes in, a little perturbed.

"A little creativity. You still haven't answered my question." Nancy's voice chills.

"I was supposed to meet someone here. Then I found you instead. Surprise!" He chuckles briefly, notices that nobody is joining him, and then sighs and scratches his ear.

"Whom were you supposed to meet here?" she continues.

"Forgive me. I must not be at the right place." He bows his head again and turns to leave.

"Just a second. You—" Nancy cuts herself off, briefly distracted by the fact that Zoe's spy friend isn't moving to subdue him. "Rentaro, this location is very out of the way. You're refusing to tell me anything about your business here." She pauses, checks the accusation in her tone. She's convinced enough that it's justified, but it probably won't get her any answers. "Maybe you don't mean any harm, but you have to realize how this looks."

He faces her again. "You're right. I don't mean any harm. But betraying the confidence of a friend is very bad to me."

"Me too. And after everything that happened in Kyoto, you owe me your friendship as well."

Rentaro's eyes go to the gravel in front of him.

Nancy's phone buzzes. She turns her back and opens messages.

**THREEDOM 3:2 NODCUNICYVVSDLROWXHDTRUSULGN - I**

Nancy stares at Sonny until he feels her eyes and turns to her. She sends her eyes over to Rentaro and back to him. Understanding her flawlessly, he walks over to Rentaro, placing a hand on his forearm and continuing the discussion. She returns inside the hotel and finds the room closest to the front where everyone is standing, opening both of the windows. Then, pulling out her Vigenère Square, she gets to work.

Thinking back to the book of poems Zoe wrote, Nancy focuses first on the first word of the text then goes from there. Title Threedom, line 3, word 2. Gobsmacked is the word Zoe's referring to, the plaintext. Nancy recognizes it immediately. Each poem has two or three "big" words that Zoe prefers for the Square, since small words create letter patterns in the code that can give away the plaintext to a seasoned decoder, making it theoretically breakable. Even if Thanos isn't a spy and well-versed in codes, Zoe likes to be cautious.

G + N = **H** ; O + O = **A** ; B + D = **C** ; S + C = **K**.

Impatiently she continues, pushing her finger horizontally across the page. The paper breaks under her nail.

**HACKINGSUS**

The sound of Sonny's voice breaks her concentration momentarily. "I understand about your friend, but we're facing certain risks here. Can you call your friend so we can compromise?"

Nancy's mind dissolves back into letters and squares before Rentaro responds, but the tone of his voice seems cooperative.

**HACKINGSUSPECTFO**

A throat clears.

Eyes darting up for a millisecond, Nancy notices that Sonny is standing in front of her window. "So what's up?" he asks.

"Not now," she replies tersely. Her eyes travel from left to right in the same paths her fingers took just a moment ago.

Dutifully he waits.

**HACKINGSUSPECTFOUNDAN**

Nancy's phone begins to ring, going to a call screen. Furiously she declines the call and returns to text messages to see the code again.

**HACKINGSUSPECTFOUNDANDTAILED**

Now she returns to calls and taps the most recent one.

"You and Wren are needed at Sea-Tac. Come now."

The call ends, giving Nancy barely enough time to comprehend Justin's request. It all swells her head to the brink of explosion. She climbs out the window and stomps over to Rentaro and Sonny.

"—to know where she is."

"I really can't help you there." Sonny leaps around and starts to bellow Nancy's name before seeing that he's face to face with her.

She blinks once. "Know where who is, Rentaro?"

He stutters, mumbles inaudibly a few times, and finally shuffles his feet and says: "A contact of mine, Zoe Wolfe."

"I thought a second ago she was your friend."

"Well, in a manner of speaking—"

"In a manner of speaking you are treading on thin ice. Where did you hear that name?"

"There is—we have a mutual contact."

"You don't seem to have any trouble giving me information now. In fact, you don't seem very surprised to see us." Nancy turns and gestures to Sonny, who's standing behind and to her left. "Did you know that we were going to be here? Who is your mutual contact?" If the past few minutes have taught her anything, it's that overloading the brain with overlapping questions and demands will knock the calmest of people off their guards. Right now, as an interrogation tactic, it's worth its weight in gold.

"I did not," he replies to the first question, flustered. His response is so automatic, however, that Nancy is fairly sure that it's the truth.

"What about the contact?"

"Zoe?"

Nancy bites the inside of her cheek. He's repeating information. "Your mutual contact. Zoe's friend and your friend. Who are they and whom do they work for? Keep talking."

Rentaro's golden face goes paler and paler. "I need to find Zoe," he says.

"Didn't you just call her? The person you were talking to just now? That was Zoe, wasn't it? You just talked to her. Why do you need to find her?"

"I need to find her," he repeats, mumbling and looking off to the side.

She's losing him. Time to bring him back. "Do you work for Thanos?"

A sharp intake of breath to her left, an incredulous look from her right. Rentaro himself shakes his head and utters a loud denial, eyes wide.

"I don't believe you," Nancy says. She actually does, but she's not about to lose the footing she's just gained. "You would've come here a lot freer with mutually beneficial information if you weren't working for him. You wouldn't be treating us like the enemy—"

"Take me to Zoe and I'll tell you," Rentaro cuts across her. "If she'll let me. But I need to speak to her now."

"Right." Nancy nods, mind returning to Justin's phone call. "And we needed to be there five minutes ago. Sonny, come with me."

They walk out of earshot of the others, although Nancy keeps an eye on Rentaro and Zoe's colleague. "Are you okay with keeping him talking again? I need to clear all this with Zoe."

"Yeah, of course."

"Good. Because you're the only person I can fully trust right now. I don't know what's going on, but it's fishy."

Sonny nods. "I'll get what I can out of him. Only I'm not quite as good as you at being tough about it, so can I go the friendly route?"

"That's what I'm counting on." Nancy reaches over and clasps his hand. "Thank you. You've been incredible through all this."

He smiles in thanks and bounds back over to Rentaro.

Nancy pulls out her phone and dials, pursing her lips. Getting Rentaro to crack was one thing.

Getting Zoe to do so is another matter entirely.

The call is declined.

Nancy calls again.

And again.

And again.

"What is this? I swear I can't talk right now—"

"I found your wrong number. Rentaro Aihara, right?"

Silence.

"So?" she prompts.

"There's a very good reason for—"

Good. She's already on the defensive. Nancy lets her ramble on and stew in her guilt for a few more seconds. Then she pounces. "Justin needs us over there, as I'm sure you know, so I don't have time to listen to your excuses. Rentaro is insisting that we bring him to you right now in exchange for some marginally relevant information about what the fuck he's doing here."

"Well that's good, since he was supposed to meet me half an hour ago," Zoe replies mildly.

Nancy takes two deep, labored breaths to combat her rage. Not now, she reminds herself. "It'll take us, I don't know, maybe twenty minutes to get to where you are. Take that time to bury all the secrets because when we get there, you will provide us complete transparency from now on or we're both walking away." She hangs up the phone and rejoins the group.

Sonny appears to be engaging Rentaro in a conversation about "theoretical" hacking.

"You," Nancy addresses Zoe's colleague. "You got a car?"

He nods.

"Okay. Let's all head over."

Nancy doesn't hear, doesn't see, doesn't feel during the ride to Sea-Tac. The world is a hot air balloon. Humans are banshees, grass is brimstone, streets are cyanide. Breaking Hades is the closest any of them will ever get to impossible. It is not impossible, but marginally possible—must be marginally possible because the only thing that's impossible for them is failure.

They must not fail.

Zoe is there to meet them. She thanks her colleague and asks him to stand by. Then she, Nancy, Sonny, and Rentaro head to a crowded park and sit on the grass. Today is another sunny day, doubling the rarity.

"I guess you didn't get my memo about the change in location of our rendezvous?" Zoe asks Rentaro.

"No," he replies.

"Okay." She smooths her skirt and looks at the others. Sonny meets her gaze. Nancy stares at the leg of a park bench nearby. "I'm not going to go through the whole 'confidential' thing again since we're all familiar with it by now, but I will say that I'm about to convey some highly sensitive information."

"Understood," Sonny replies.

Another flare of anger surges through Nancy. He's being far too lenient about this. Of course it's in his nature to be trusting, but now isn't the time for that.

"Rentaro here—codenamed Crow, for future communications' sake—is an asset to this mission. While I have complete confidence in everybody immediately involved, I had a gut feeling that three other people would not be enough. So I called him in a few days before bringing you guys in and put him on standby, essentially."

"So he's from your organization?" Sonny asks.

"Yes and no."

"Complete transparency," Nancy reminds.

Zoe nods, draws her lips together inward. Then she turns to Rentaro. "It's your information now. Tell her everything."

"I work in Digital Intelligence for INR," Rentaro says, looking past them all. "Things happened in Kyoto that were… painful, as you know, Nancy. I came here to start new, in a different city. But I still love Japan and wanted to keep it with me. Soon after arriving I was recruited by a freelance cryptologist who does a lot of work for INR. Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific."

"East Asia?" Nancy scoffs. "But—"

"Yes, a little random," Zoe cuts in. "Leena and I have been friends for a while, and I called in a favor from her."

Sonny's head jolts up. His startled eyes go to Nancy's. She doesn't understand until he says, "Leena Patel?"

"You got it. I asked her to send me her best technologist and reassured her that he wouldn't be doing any fieldwork."

"And what does doing fieldwork have to do with anything?" Nancy asks.

"Doing fieldwork equals danger equals dead agent and trouble and paperwork for her!" Zoe snaps impatiently. "Look, not that this matters now, but there were two reasons I didn't brief you on any of this. One, this is a strictly under the table transaction that could get both our asses in hot water with our respective organizations. They don't take kindly to agent swapping and sharing intelligence. Not that we don't trust you, we just wanted as few people as possible to know for the safety of everyone involved. But now that Rentaro's off standby and officially doing stuff with us, it's impossible to not have you know. Two, Nancy, your Cathedral file said you got a little too attached to the Kyoto case. I did some digging and found out about that bit of friction between you and Rentaro. I thought that there would be some trust issues on your end."

"Not half as many as I have with you right now," Nancy replies coolly.

"I don't expect you to be okay with it. We just all need to be able to work together. We've caught sight of Cerberus, and right now Justin's out there dealing with that on his own. Now that everything's out on the table, we need to continue with the assignment."

Nancy pushes herself up off the grass, extending an arm to Sonny. She calls Justin, asks for his location, crunches the distance toward it without a word.


	12. Chapter 12

Watching Nancy walk away, Sonny feels responsibility nestle over his shoulders. Her anger at Zoe is definitely justified, but whatever is going on here is about to be over. If Nancy doesn't decide to trust her again soon, she might never get the chance.

Jamila had told him several times about being on the generational clock, forced to throw her life in with countless others over thousands of years. He could never relate to that, but he thought it might be kind of like the most drastic time zone changes… in the world, but also, especially on Jamila's level, in the galaxy, when Einstein's theory of relativity took its course and time bent forwards at such a rate that time travel became—theoretically, anyway—possible.

So naturally now that her legacy is fulfilled, ditching her ancestors and adapting to her normal human lifetime will continue to be difficult for her. That's why she meticulously plans everything, and once something derails—like the pamphlets Sonny's about three weeks overdue on now—she derails, too.

Sonny forces himself to not think about the pamphlets. Not that they're a small issue, but there are more important things going on. And if he could get Jamila's advice right now on the current situation with Nancy and Zoe, which he sorely needs, he knows exactly what she'd say: "Life's too short."

"And it'll be shorter without friends like Zoe," Sonny adds.

Aloud, as it turns out.

Zoe turns to look at him.

"I'm worried about Nancy," he admits.

She waves a hand. "She'll vent once or twice and be fine. I understand why she's mad, but politics are a huge consideration in the spy world. INR never shares intel or agents with MI6 or vice versa. When you've got two separate agencies sharing, that's already bad news. When those agencies are from two separate countries, that becomes an additional factor to sweat over. And as smart as Nancy is, she's been living pretty much her whole life on her own terms, so I don't think she's learned that lesson yet."

"Well, I—" Sonny scrambles for a defense of his girlfriend, but Zoe's statement makes sense. "I can't really respond to that."

"Why?"

His eyes fall to his feet. "Politics," he mutters.

Zoe laughs. "Case in point."

"Wait a minute." Sonny meets her stare again. "If politics is such a huge consideration for you, why did you collaborate with INR in the first place?"

Blowing air through her lips and tossing Sonny an indignant look, Zoe replies: "Just because I adhere to politics doesn't mean I like them. Taking orders isn't my thing, thank you very much. I mean, the spy gear is cool, but everything else… I'd kill to do what Nancy does. Literally. Thanos," she adds dryly.

"You're not afraid of him, are you?"

"No." Zoe's expression cools subtly. "I've faced worse. People I was actually afraid of back in Scotland. And to answer your other question, in the spirit of 'transparency,' as Nancy put it: I didn't listen to the proverbial political angel on my shoulder this time around because we had just found out about Cerberus's skills and involvement with Thanos, and we needed another technical specialist for ourselves—an inventor, since we were eyeing you for the hacking stuff. As you know, MI6 is based in the U.K. and my field office in D.C. doesn't offer that kind of talent—the kind that would give us an edge over Cerberus by offering us cutting-edge technology that isn't available to anyone else. I consider myself a first-rate spy and Justin well on his way to being one, but we're not first-rate techies, which would've put a giant hole in our defense strategy had we decided to work alone."

"And why Leena? I mean, I've met her, and she seems like the last person who would want to collaborate with anyone on anything."

Zoe's bark of laughter startles him. "Because she cheated on a national reality television show? Leena and I are old friends and ex-colleagues. We both believe in the value of personal connections—particularly their helpfulness in saving our asses. Country borders are arbitrary, and so are agency boundaries. I've found that a lot of us in espionage—hell, in life—are in it for the same thing."

Just as Sonny's about to reply, Zoe's phone rings. She picks up and turns around. "You broke him? What'd he say?" Pause. "Good. Can you get someone over there?" Another pause. "The instructions are vague. Hmmm. Keep working on him and tell Tim to figure it out." Yet another pause. "You did already? Good. Thanks. Send him over when he does. I'll get over there when I get the chance."

"Broke who?" Sonny asks after she pulls the phone away from her ear.

"One of the surviving gunmen from that shootout yesterday—Lambros—told us where Cerberus lives."

"You… captured people from his side, then." Sonny puts it together. Thanks to the sensory overload and panic over Zoe losing consciousness (leading to his own loss of consciousness), yesterday is a bit fuzzy for him.

"Yeah." Zoe nudges him with her elbow. "Try not to sleep so much."

"He says he knows where she lives." Sonny's intuition goes into overload. "Would this Lambros guy really know that? He's more of a henchman while Cerberus is somewhere higher up. What if he's lying?"

"That's always a possibility." Zoe raises the phone back to her ear.

Sonny refuses the hint. "But?" he prompts.

"But nothing. It's a risk. I'm sure as hell not sending him alone, though." This time Zoe walks a few steps away and thumbs Justin's number into the phone, and Sonny doesn't follow her.

"Still tracking Cerberus? Lost her? Good. Yes, good. No, not sarcastic. Shut up and let me talk. Waterwall now." Zoe ends the call again.

"Odd code name for an apartment, 'Waterwall.'" Sonny mutters.

"Airport, actually." Zoe eyes him quizzically. "Where he was headed anyway, since Cerberus was, too. What did you expect?"

"Um… well, Cerberus's apartment seemed to be pretty heavily implied."

"Not until later."

Sonny blinks, stunned. Clearly he missed something somewhere. Is this what talking to him is like for Nancy and Jamila?

"We're so close to finishing this that her devices hardly matter anymore. Now that we've got some of Thanos' guys, it puts even more pressure on him to get rid of us or get the fuck out. Whatever we find in Cerberus' apartment—unless Lambros is lying—will be good for getting charges that stick and, more importantly, charges that justify trying him here in the US rather than Greece, where he'll be treated far more leniently. Right now I'll bet you anything that he's sitting on an escape route. Thanos is fearless, but he definitely isn't stupid. Confiscated evidence from the Phideas Cultural Center art heist fiasco—specifically his written communications with Xenia Doukas—attest to that." Zoe swings her head right to left to take in the surroundings. Her eyes lock on Rentaro. "Come on," she says to him. "We're leaving."

Rentaro approaches them with a guarded expression bordering on contrite. His eyes dart around.

What he has to be sorry for, Sonny has no clue.

"I've just completed a listening device that allows a person to eavesdrop on another from up to fifty meters away," he finally says. "It might have been a little more useful for Cerberus' apartment if it were visual rather than audial."

"We plan on running into Cerberus pretty soon now, so I think that that'll help actually," Zoe says as they start walking. "I've arranged some transport for us," she adds, noting Sonny's nervous look, "so rest assured we'll be there soon."

Resting sufficiently assured, Sonny turns to Rentaro. "How does your invention work?"

"It singles out a person in a crowd by measuring voice pitch and speed. And since we can hardly be expected to know exactly how these people sound, there's also an adjustable range of up to half an octave for pitch and four seconds for speed. Then you can narrow it down from there. There are three dials, one for pitch, one for speed, and one for range. From there it works a lot like a HAM radio."

Sonny laughs aloud, remembering all the fun times he had with Henrik's HAM radio back at Beech Hill. His favorite prank by far was the "Intergalactic Pizza Delivery" one. His least favorite was the prank that had broken it—which wasn't even a prank, really, just some tinkering Sonny had done with it when he was bored.

Not his fault the world would be better off with more purple display screens.

Rentaro, thrown off by this reaction, falls silent.

Zoe jumps in. "I actually have an audio clip of my top suspect for Cerberus—fairly positive it's her—before she was Cerberus, anyway. Someone recorded her reading her paper at a tech conference and put it up on YouTube."

"Then you already know more than the average person would," Rentaro says. "Hopefully my ear-thrower can be useful for you."

"That…" Sonny's mind clears back to the topic at hand, and he shakes his head. "Wow. How long did that take you?"

"One and a half years, ever since I started for INR. I spent most of my spare time on it."

Grinning and looking up to the sky, Sonny determines for the thousandth time in his life that the world is full of beauty.

~

Eyes trained on the ground, Nancy tries to guess the percentage of inconsiderate people in the world.

70%, maybe.

But that number's too easy, too clean. Statistics don't work like that.

So instead she'll go with 69.2%.

Yeah, that sounds good.

"Penny for your thoughts," Justin says without looking at her.

"How many or what they are?"

"That's an odd question," he smiles wanly.

"It's just that I'm trying to guess a percentage of something like jelly beans in a jar. Kids used to get prizes for that." And I deserve a prize if I guess right, she thinks.

"Well, each answer would be equally interesting."

Nancy isn't big on flattery, but in the past few hours she's learned that beggars can't be choosers when it comes to allies. They lost Cerberus less than a minute ago and are continuing toward the airport entrance on foot. "I can't believe Zoe didn't tell me about Rentaro," she admits. "She tells us to stick together. Doesn't that mean no secrets?"

"Not in our world."

"Then I don't want any part of it." Nancy glares at her shoelaces. She knows what she's saying, expects that Justin will become angry or irritated given his quick temper. She remembers his reaction toward the burnt-out microscope bulb—what he thought was the microscope broken itself. Now will be a worse outburst, since they aren't talking about microscopes anymore.

To her utter surprise, he nods. "Working for Zoe started off as a nightmare. I basically went to jail for her. It was definitely my fault that I hung the Renoir in the wrong place and got caught with it, but she's the one who wanted me to steal it in the first place."

Lifting her gaze, she turns to him. "How did it get better?"

"The secrets disappeared, over time. Zoe's in a position where she can't trust very easily, judging by how many threats she issued me when I started work for her." Justin's cedar-brown eyes snap into focus on the memory. "It's not that you haven't earned her trust, it's that this is the first time you two have officially worked together—in Glasgow you two just sort of ran into each other and weren't meant to work together on Revenant—even though it seems like the millionth. Believe me, I know how it feels."

Nancy's forehead dissolves into a tangle of brow lines. "I understand that. Really, I do." She pauses, considering her approach. "But this… this gives me reason to be afraid of her."

"Reason, or right?"

"Both, now that you mention it."

"Well, I'm not dumb enough to tell someone as smart as you how you should feel about something, so I won't. In a way, I agree. The things Zoe's said and done as a spy do give people reason to be afraid of her, in the most topical sense. But in all the time I've worked for Zoe, no matter what she's said to me, I've never felt afraid of her or the need to be afraid of her. I knew that her threats weren't empty ones. I knew that she was fully capable of actualizing them. But I also knew that if I did everything right by her she would take care of me. She's spent the last few years making that abundantly clear."

Memories break through the taciturn dam in Nancy's brain. Memories of Zoe's split reaction of fear and grit to Justin's injury at the fountain, barking orders through her own panic. Memories of her uncompromising insistence that he go to the hospital—an actual hospital, not MI6's tiny clinic where privacy was valued over health and safety.

Few people were mentally capable of the first or emotionally capable of the second.

"She has excellent judgment when it comes to keeping everybody safe. Her omission of Rentaro's involvement was just as much for his safety as it was for all of ours."

Nancy nods, defeated. "Okay. I'm sold."

Justin chuckles. "It really gets easier when you transcend asset status and actually become affiliated with the agency. If you decide you want to go that route. Even though you've already done a lot for us, you have too many loose acquaintances from all your cases. You'd have to stop doing your own stuff and start working for MI6 entirely… which I don't think you want and Zoe doesn't think you want. Even if you don't become an agent, a few more rounds of being an asset would be mutually beneficial where trust is concerned. She considers personal connections over rank."

"I said I'm sold," Nancy laughs herself. "Don't unsell me."

"Fine." He throws an amiable glance her way. "Have you heard Niobe is back?"

"Niobe's back?" Nancy's eyes widen with shock. "Since when?"

"Yesterday. I guess it all got lost in the Rentaro debacle. Or Crow, as we're supposed to call him."

"Even when in person?" Nancy asks, thinking back to Zoe's communication rules.

"Everything regarding him. We're not to say his actual name at all, by order of Zoe or Leena or both. Had he come to the right place to meet Zoe, I'm sure she would've introduced him and the communication memo in a more orderly manner." Justin's eyes lose their sparkle, but it returns when he brings himself and Nancy back on topic. "We ran into Niobe yesterday and had a chat with her. Weren't too surprised, since I snapped a photo of a person in Seattle that Zoe was fairly sure was Niobe, but we hadn't had any contact with her before then—"

"The one with brown hair on the main computer?" Nancy frowns. "That was Niobe? I thought that was Cerberus."

"N—no," he says, confused by the interruption. "Cerberus is much taller with auburn hair. Anyway, Niobe is willing to help us."

"Niobe, huh?" Nancy grins. "The same Niobe who referred to herself as timid?"

"Trauma can do horrible things to a person," he replies, eyes going hazy with speculation. "I don't think she was ever timid at all."

Nancy doesn't know how to respond. It isn't her place to agree or disagree on the disposition of a person she really doesn't know all that well.

The rattle of an engine diverts both their eyes. A black Jeep winds up to them and stops, Zoe hopping out and grinning ear to ear. "Better than Uber, better than Lyft. Those suckers can fight themselves into the grave with my kind of transit."

"I know I used to drive for Lyft but I have to agree," Sonny says from inside the car.

"Is there a name for this vastly superior mode of transport?" Nancy deadpans.

"Not a specific one. We just call it Haha-You-Suck. Always arrives in under three minutes, and you get to kick the driver to the curb once she arrives."

"Very charitable."

"Well, get in!" Zoe hops back into the driver's seat while Nancy and Justin lumber into the back, where Sonny is already sitting. Rentaro has the front.

"So," Zoe eyes Nancy and Justin through the rear-view, "We received intel on where Cerberus lives. But we're not going there right now and the directions are a little… vague. We could always make Lambros drive us there," she quips.

"Yeah. That would go over great, I'm sure," Nancy replies flatly. But afterward she can't keep form chortling and shaking her head.

Sonny smiles.

"Crow," Nancy begins.

Rentaro turns in his seat to look at her.

"I'm genuinely happy to see that you're doing well for yourself. And it was pretty brave of you to come out here alone, even on boss's orders."

"I might owe Petrel a favor or two," he replies bashfully.

"Petrel does have a great eye for young talent," Zoe adds. "Just a couple of months ago she signed two promising siblings—twins, in fact—over to Doppeler for training." She twists around the reservoir where Nancy and Justin had been walking until she bumps up to Departures Drive.

Justin, sitting directly behind Zoe, leans forward in his seat. "I'm sorry I lost Cerberus," he says. "But don't you want me to try and find her again while the rest of you go to the airport?"

"Things are too dangerous right now to send you out alone without backup, and I need Kestrel, Wren, and Crow with me. And I don't trust any of the agency boys with your life after what they pulled yesterday. Besides, we can't miss the forest for the trees. I'm pretty sure Cerberus is a red herring right now, and even if she isn't, she's not the one we need to catch. Thanos is, and I'm not going to risk letting him get away. If we all stick together and communicate offline—i.e., in person—she really can't hurt us anyway. She was headed to the airport, right?"

Wow, Nancy notes, surprised. Justin was right about Zoe's regards for safety.

"But… Cerberus," he continues. "She can still sneak up on this."

"Yeah, and her electronic footprint is a lot more formidable than her physical one. I'm not saying we shouldn't be careful, but if we stick together we're five strong. As the nationwide frat boy battle cry so aptly puts it, 'Come at me, bro.'"

"I've never heard that," Rentaro admits.

"Sadly, it's a thing," Sonny replies.

"Anyway," Zoe continues, waiting for silence to fall over the group, "Team Thanos may not come to Sea-Tac since so much has gone down there, but King County is so tiny that they'll stick out like a sore thumb. Still, to cover the possibility of their leaving at a different airport, I've sent other people to Spokane, Bellingham, Tri-Cities, King County, Anacortes, Tacoma Narrows, and Kenmore. I also have a couple of people here to help us with capture, and they're the best of the group, not that that's saying much."

"I thought you didn't trust the agency boys," Justin replies dryly.

"Not with you. But I think they've got enough brains to tackle Thanos. These guys are addicted to noise, really. They get the job done, but they make a big mess of it by waving around their guns and pretending they're Starsky and Hutch. Press is going to be a field day with those thick-thumbed boy scouts, but I can't worry about that right now. We need to get him before he leaves the country. If we don't and he does, we can forget about taking these three with us." She waves a hand spanning Nancy, Sonny, and Rentaro. "And you're a pain to deal with alone."

"Niobe," he suggests, eyes lighting up.

"Yeah, well, returning to the topic, we can't afford to lose him in this country. And fortunately we can control everything from one spot with our magic bullet, Sonny." Zoe parks the car in Departures and turns to him. "Time to start working on their passports so they can't leave at any airport. Do you need any information from us?"

Exhaustion springs from Sonny's spine. He sits up straighter with a new spark in his eye. "Anything you can give me regarding Hades, Pluto, and Cerberus will be helpful. I can fuck up their passports for sure, but I can fuck them up faster with more information." He pulls out his tablet.

"Forget about Cerberus. I have a feeling she's going to s—hmmm." Zoe digs around her bag for her phone. "You did turn off all our Location Services, right, Sonny?"

"Yep," he chirps. "Nobody can find out where we are, and that little chip you had me install makes it so nobody can hear the phone conversations, either."

"Thank god for sound masking," she mutters as she dials. "Hey. Seen Cerberus? Oh, okay. Shit. Okay. Thanks."

Nancy's ears snap into focus. "What?"

"Stay in the car and lock the doors," Zoe commands. "We're bulletproof and the windows are one-way. Cerberus beat us here, but at least she's... yeah, there she is. I see her. Crow, crack your window to let sound in—I promise it's still safe—and let's have that ear thrower of yours."

He pulls out the device.

"Do you need me to play you that audio clip of her again?"

He shakes his head, brow furrowing over the row of dials. He pushes them around. "I forgot to mention that this also records everything," he says, and a second later, an unclouded contralto floods their ears:

"I'm just about here. Stuck in traffic." She rotates her head around, and Nancy catches a glimpse of her face from a distance. It isn't much, but her eyes are large in proportion to her face while her mouth is small. Seeming satisfied with the sight of many cars but few people walking around, she turns away from them again. "Yeah."

"She's lying!" Zoe's grin returns. "She's driven a rift and totally isolated herself. And she's on the phone, so maybe—"

"When's your flight?" Cerberus continues.

"Naughty girl, trying to leave before he does," Zoe comments, rubbing her hands together. Pouncing on Cerberus seems almost like a prank to her.

Nancy looks over to Sonny, who shares Zoe's expression. Of course that's no surprise, since he's a prank connoisseur himself.

He's never been so into this assignment before.

"When's my flight? I—I—"

The crack of a gunshot billows around the parking lot. Though Cerberus is far away, Nancy easily sees each movement as she stumbles, throws her arms out wildly to try to regain her balance, and falls.

Nancy jolts.

Zoe's jaw sets.

Sonny looks up from his tablet.

Rentaro fiddles furiously with the dials of his machine.

Justin swears and looks down at his knees.

"You truly believe you can deceive me?"

Everyone's eyes go to Cerberus' phone on the ground.

The faint voice continues, rooting them all to their spots without daring to breathe. "You could not wait until your charge was dead to leave, as agreed. But fear not: I will find the Drew girl and twist her neck and it will be almost as if you had died honorably."

His eyes wide, Sonny reaches for Nancy, then scoots to her side. They exchange stricken glances. Nancy opens her mouth to say something, to reassure him, but his eyes are already back on his tablet, fingers flurrying over the screen like a concert pianist.

"Efharistó," Thanos continues, snapping everyone's heads back up on the alert. An indistinct reply follows.

A few seconds later, Sonny looks up to Zoe.

She holds up a finger, then pulls a sound-masking device from her purse and turns it on. "Go," she says to Sonny.

"Thanos' passport is done."

"Very good." Her voice is tired and curt. "Keep going with Thanatos. Rentaro, good work tracking Thanos' voice."

He nods in acknowledgement. "I think the other voice was Thanatos. Since there aren't a lot of people I had the range on the maximum four octaves and seconds. But his voice sounded almost exactly the same, except fainter."

"And that seems to imply they're related, which they are," Zoe nods. "They're also close by. In order for Thanos to immediately know Cerberus was sniped, he almost certainly would have had to hear the gunshot or see her fall. And he thanked Thanatos for something." She produces her phone and dials. "Niobe? Can you do something for me?"


	13. Chapter 13

"Niobe? I need you to do something for me. Is this line secure?"

"Yes," she replies without hesitating. The woman she calls Chloe sounds a little short on time.

"Okay. Are you sure about that? Because sometimes it's—oh shit, that's a powerful rifle."

The quite-puzzled Niobe blinks once or twice before asking what that means.

"One of our buddies is dead. Bullet clean through the back. But since it's at a downward angle I can tell where it's coming from and the approximate height, just takes a bit of geometry. I had one of my friends gather with the crowd and tell me what happened. So again, you sure about the phone situation?"

"I buy a new phone every day and check it completely."

"Are you in a place where you can be overheard?"

"Soundproof music practice room at the local university."

"This is why you're so much cooler than so many people. You actually think. Anyway, I need you to go to the Restaurant Napoli at Fifth and Jackson, go to the bathroom, and lock the door. Then wash your hands. Then put your hand on the left side in the shallow finger slots. Napoli people let me install my special sink there for situations just like the one we've run into."

"What is the situation, exactly?"

"One where we need disguises. How are your acting skills?"

Niobe chuckles. It's an old joke.

"Just try an American accent out for size."

The chuckles turn into laughter. "You sound like one yourself."

"Do I? Shit. I mean—I'd sooner be mistaken for a Turk than one of those loud, privileged egotists."

Egotist. That may do. Niobe's mind goes automatically to Grigor, whose ego is about as big as the Mediterranean. But his smile grows the size of the Parthenon when adjusted for figurative inflation.

Ah, hell. She actually misses the nuisance.

"Xenia, you're looking fine today," she tries.

Chloe snorts. "Said no one ever."

"Shush Chloe. You're distracting me away from my task." Niobe smirks.

"You're doing a good job, but let me give you a tip. Not fine. Fiiiiiiiiiine. Like, imagine you're looking at Kostas Voutsas and what you'd say. So, repeat after me: Xenia, you're looking fiiiiiiiiiiine."

"Okay." Niobe clears her throat. "Xenia, you're—but is there a different sound between your, like 'Your pencil' and the contraction, like 'You're wet.'"

"No, no, no, no, see, Americans are lazy. You can't go into as much detail as you're doing. And yes, they sound just about the same."

"Xenia, you're looking fiiiiiiiiiiiiiine."

"Yeah, but you have to get rid of the lilt. 'Look,' not 'Luke.'"

Niobe repeats the statement again.

"Good. Now let's go to something else."

She thinks back to other things Grigor said. Any mirth she'd been able to gather vanishes without a trace. "Back off, Thanos," she whispers.

"That's my personal favorite. But you gotta—there I go American again—must yell it. BACK OFF THANOS!"

Inhaling deeply, Niobe pauses just before the release. For a few seconds she's petrified, unable to finish the breath for fear of finishing the thought. Soon she becomes dizzy from not breathing.

"Say it."

"BACK OFF THANOS!" she shrieks, bending forward with the momentum and the weakness.

"Very American. Nice job." She talks briefly to someone off the line. "Sonny agrees."

Niobe nods, biting her lip. "I have to be American, yes? At least not a blonde American." Using Grigor as a reference for her American character gives Niobe a sense of foreboding, the same sense she wielded while forced to watch her art career slowly collapse, fully aware of what was happening every second. Grigor is similarly teetering, and he could fall any second.

"Actually…" Chloe trails off.

"Ugh. Now I have to turn into Grigor completely."

"Good luck with that. Do you feel good on the Yankee accent?"

"Could…" Niobe's lips freeze, and she trails off. Should she ask? "Could I do a British accent instead? British-English?"

"I'm sure Colin would love you for it, but I'm going for something specific here. I'm sorry for the short notice, and you won't be talking a lot—hopefully not at all aside from a phrase or two here and there. Otherwise this tutorial would be a bunch longer. I had other plans for you, but we're in a little bit of a bind here. I swear I'll keep you safe to the best of my ability."

"You normally don't send people out so quickly into fieldwork, do you?"

Chloe hesitates. "No. I know I haven't told you a lot about myself, but it's coming. For now, sparknotes: head to the restaurant and wash your hands. Then you need to go right downstairs and ask them to call you a cab—in a low voice with an American accent. Don't go outside and look for one yourself. Have the restaurant call you one... ours are special. Won't need anything else. After that, get to the Foods Fundamental in Bellevue Square at two on the dot. Don't be there more than five minutes early. It's on the first floor of the mall. Thanos will be approaching you, but as a friend. Are you prepared for that?"

Niobe's breath catches. Then a short, sharp knife of adrenaline scores her insides, bleeding inside energy out. "Yes," she says.

"Good. You won't have to talk to him or anything; I'll see to that. And no phone communications after this. As a matter of fact I'm a little uneasy about making this call given the circumstances. I'll get over to Bellevue Square in an hour, and backup will be arriving sooner. Preferably before you even get there. Can you manage that?"

"Yes," Niobe repeats. The word liberates her to extremes she never could've imagined. Yes, she's scared.

But more importantly:

Yes, she can do it.

Placing her phone into the pocket of her black trousers, Niobe rushes out of the practice room and building and down the street and—she smiles appreciatively; Zoe must've known something about this—runs into the Restaurant Napoli entrance. She opens the door and walks toward the hostess stand. "I have a problem," she says. "Can you tell me where the restroom is? I'll come down and order afterward."

The hostess nods and points toward a staircase in the back and to the left, surrounded on each side by walls. Niobe's face falls when her back is turned. That would've been an opportune moment to practice her American. Now she has no chance before putting Chloe's costume on.

Closing and locking the bathroom door, Niobe lifts her fingers to the slots and watches a secret compartment fall open below the sink bowl. She lowers to her knees and removes its components: first, a straight blonde wig made from human hair, not cheap synthetic; next, a knee-length red crepe dress; then, a pair of designer sunglasses and long white gloves, and last, a pair of black pumps.

She devotes the next minute to making sure the wig is on firm and straight. Taking several deep breaths, she thinks about how Grigor would act if he were all decked out like this rather than wearing cheap rags or costumes. Well, he'd still be talking a lot, which Niobe can't do lest she give herself away. Instead she'll have to find a way to exude his disposition. And, raising her chin and squaring her shoulders, she places her clothes in the sink compartment, closes it, and strolls out of the bathroom, down the staircase. The same hostess cracks into her vision once she steps past the wall.

In a sudden moment of apprehension Niobe darts back up the stairs until she is out of sight again. What if she recognizes her? What if she knows she hasn't ordered anything and still wants a cab?

One more deep breath.

Then she goes again, at the same leisurely pace.

The hostess looks up.

"Cab please," Niobe says in a bright, flat tone: Americanism distilled to its core. Maybe brevity is the soul of wit to Grigor and his theatre nerds, but to her brevity is the soul of not giving away your true identity.

The hostess's eyes perceive her for a millisecond before lowering to the reservation list on the stand. "Right away, Ms. Quick. Having trouble with the heels?"

"Yes, these—" Niobe kicks an ankle up, surveys it, and trails off and finishes with a unvocal scoff for effect.

In exactly seventy seconds, a small, sleek black car pulls out front. Heeding Chloe's instructions, Niobe hurries into it. Exhilaration swells her body. No matter where this goes, at last, she'll be free of the monster Thanos.

And, best yet, the freedom would come in part at her own hands.

~

Zoe stares down the circle of doom, aka the main parking lot of Seattle-Tacoma, as she pulls on her disguise. A small crowd of people are already gathering around Cerberus' body.

"Faster, Justin!" She moves her hand back and forward, then leans forward herself. "I know we're close!"

"I assume you just want the general direction?" he replies, moving the steering wheel in a graceful arc to the left.

"Yeah. The bullet came from over here. And I need to find them. Thanatos at least, but both ideally." Zoe wrenches open the car door on the side of a sharp precipe.

"What are you planning, Infinitum?"

"It's practically suicide, which is why I need you to take the reins, K2. Didn't want to do this, but it looks like we don't have a choice if we want to nab them here." Tearing her eyes from Cerberus, she peers around the steep hill. Changing her mind, she pulls the door shut. "Take me a third of the way up the knob."

Setting down his tablet, Sonny enters the conversation. "Thanatos can't leave now, either. I just finished messing up his passport. So I'm free. Can do whatever you need me to do."

"Yeah." Zoe bites her lip, mind scanning through a range of actions that will help her plan. "Give me the phone you're using right now."

He hands it over.

Quickly Zoe pulls out a piece of paper and—she sees Nancy lean forward in her peripherals—a Vigenère Square. In under a minute she has the text encoded, typing into the phone: "ABNEGATE 13:7 NO KV FR FC XL IE EI WC HY KR JR ZP PY DR EM LY DE OS XE WZ ZE SY FN UE UL PR." After adding Nancy's number, she thumbs in the number for Samantha Quick's special phone, then quickly scribbles down the plaintext.

She angles around to face Sonny again. "Destroy this phone and Nancy's. And then I have other things for you, Wren. Hack Thanatos' phone and get me recent messages. Then, if you have time, Thanos. But Thanatos is the guy I need in my pocket right now."

"In your pocket?" Justin's eyes dart over to her in brief shock before returning to the hill they're on. "What are you doing?"

"Thanatos knows Samantha. Thanatos knows of Nancy Drew. He's the key to nabbing Thanos."

"Oh, no." He shakes his head. "I feel like normally you're the one to ask me this, but are you completely daft?"

"I have to be. This is a big risk, I know, but if Nancy here—" she cranes her neck to the side, "—if she can pretend to be me and steal Thanatos' Sadal Melik sapphire in Venice with less than a day of briefing, I can sure as hell do this."

Sonny shifts forward in his seat. "Do what, exactly?"

"Tell him I know where to find Nancy, that bitch stole my opportunity to steal (his sapphire, as it turns out), enemy of an enemy is a friend, and pretend to hand her to him on a silver platter."

"Wooooooo, boy," Sonny flops back against the headrest. "Listen to me: they call me crazy, and I'm telling you that that is cr—"

"You got any better ideas, alien boy?"

"Um, yes. Don't do that. That's a better idea by default."

"I do just happen to know what I'm doing, you know." Zoe pulls her blonde wig into a ponytail, and Samantha tosses the lot of them a suave grin. "Let me off here. Oh, and Justin? I know it's your favorite place in the world, but get everybody out of Hotel Griffin—and I mean everybody. Call another covert agent in to get rid of lingering colleagues of ours, homeless people, trespassers, stoned teenagers, everybody. We didn't leave any important evidence in there, so other than that, we can leave the location as is. And then get some backup to the Bellevue Square Mall within the hour. People built for physical combat. And tell them not to be flashy. If anybody detects them there, my super risky plan is done for, and I will be seriously pissed."

Silence.

Her phone rings.

"Damn it. More good news!" she breaks character to chirp in a saccharine tone, accepting the call. "Hello? Nothing? Yeah, that's what I thought. Give Lambros the finger next time you see him. And tell him that that little stunt will add onto his sentence when he gets tried."

"They found nothing at Cerberus' apartment, huh?" Nancy says.

The others turn to look at her. She's been uncharacteristically quiet. There are bags around her eyes, and her skin is slightly pale.

"Nothing but a trip wire one of my pals almost made acquaintance with. So yeah, we're not visiting there anymore." Zoe's voice deepens back to the chilling contralto of her alias. She leans forward to get out of the car.

Justin blocks her with his arm. "Zoe, what makes you think that they won't recognize you?"

"The name's Samantha, you nitwit. Three reasons. One, they can't see who's in this car because, again, the windows are one-way. Two, I'm fairly sure they've only really seen me from a distance, and that was as myself. Three, do you see how much contouring I've done with the makeup? I did that to look different."

He spares another quick glance in her direction and reluctantly nods. "What about that time at the fountain, though?" he argues.

"That was three seconds tops. Besides, Thanos was grinning at Nancy like a piece of meat he wanted to hunt. I might not have even registered."

He sighs. "Fine. Against my better judgment, fine. But what about me for backup?"

"It'll be too conspicuous. Plus, I need you with the others right now. You're the only agent here, so you're in charge. Get to Bellevue Arts Museum and park. If we need each other, you'll only be a stone's throw away from me." With that, Samantha slips out of the car.

The world changes for her. The air is thinner, and she has to take two deep breaths to acclimate to it. It's chillier out here, and some waving trees sprinkle yesterday's rain at her. Maybe this is what growing up in the Scottish Highlands is like. Samantha makes a note of it for Bridget. She smiles that small, symmetrical smile she's reserved for solo company. Even with the handful of close friends she's made over the years—Justin, Leena, Niobe—nothing quite beats being alone, not having to worry about covering anybody's ass but her own.

Theoretically Thanos and Thanatos could've left by now. That makes things difficult, which normally Z—Samantha, get a hold of yourself, she thinks—embraces. But today she has no time for that because, surprise surprise, she has other people's asses to cover.

The ground flattens in small medallions under her heels. Okay, so maybe Chloe's sensible shoes would've been a better fit for this climb. Too late now.

The fifteen minutes she spends looking for them, alone, are hands down the most relaxed quarter of an hour she's had since starting this thing some months ago. But since that's fifteen minutes in which Thanos could be getting away, she'll never admit it to anybody.

Really says something that Nancy and Sonny are exhausted after only six days of it. Not something bad, just something.

Finally a pair of men's voices alert Samantha to the fact that, regrettably, her alone time is over. She saunters in the direction of the sound, preparing her proposition to them.

The redhead, Thanatos, is the first to look up at her. His eyes seem to withdraw while surveying her, and his hand tightens over the rifle at his side.

So Pluto's the marksman after all. Continuing toward them, Samantha sticks out a hand to him. "Samantha Quick," she purrs. "I think we know each other."

"Yes," Thanatos replies gruffly. He doesn't move. "You're the type we have to hang onto our jewels around."

"Actually, that's Nancy Drew. I have a little quarrel with her, which I'll get into in a second. First," she turns to Thanos, and he looks smaller in person, "as a seasoned thief myself, I'd like to publicly admire your work at the Phideas Cultural Center. Without a doubt the heist would have succeeded had the Drew girl not interfered."

Thanos growls in response.

"My thoughts exactly," Samantha nods sagely. "Which is why I was hoping to form a bit of an alliance with you two fine rugged outdoorsmen. Nancy Drew stole my commission and my reputation. Needless to say, I am no longer a top-echelon thief in the eyes of my equals. Business has been bad. It looks like business has been bad for you, too." She glances down the hill toward the crowd around Cerberus, Cerberus herself no longer visible in the midst of it. "Don't tell me that's Nancy down there. I so relished the thought of being present. Not to mention, it'd dent my ego a little to think she's slipped off my leash."

Starting to look intrigued, Thanatos lowers his arms and relaxes his stance. "On a leash, you say?"

"I know where you can find her."

Thanatos' head jerks up at this. He raises his chin above her eye level, appraising her.

Thanos is far less reactionary. "How would you benefit from this little arrangement?"

"If I'm a part of this, it sends a message to my… my friends, not to fuck with me. If I can get rid of Nancy Drew, they'll know once and for all who's the better of us." Samantha pauses, chuckling. "And you, well… you're close to the airport, so I'm going to make an educated guess and say you wanted her dead yesterday so you can take care of other business."

"Well," Thanatos breaks into a wide grin, "I like this woman."

"What makes you think we desire Nancy dead?" Thanos pushes on, ignoring his cousin.

"I suspected, just based on how things work in an overly politically correct world, what we have to put up with." Samantha performs the oh-so-slow smile she's practiced so many times in front of a mirror. "I think the three of us will get along just fine."

Thanatos turns around, and he and Thanos exchange glances. With the golden light shining cedar on Thanos' hair, the two look almost identical from what Samantha can see. "You're hard men to reach," she says. Hair flies out of her ponytail and in front of her face, and she tucks it behind her ear. "Took me the better part of a month."

"We travel covertly," Thanos provides.

Well. The fact that he's even talking seems to be in Samantha's favor. She doesn't hide the triumph, rather stands up straighter and takes a few steps forward until she's level with Thanatos. This gives her the advantage of seeing both their faces. "Me too," she says. "I can be incredibly accommodating when it's convenient, especially with pretty people." She reaches out and strokes Thanatos' rust red goatee. If the guy hasn't been laid in as long a while as she thinks—if busy spies seldom get laid, then busy criminals never do—this tactic should win him over. "Built like—what's that big guy in the Trojan War—Menelaus, aren't you?"

Thanatos grins, and his face starts to vaguely resemble his hair.

"Helen," Thanos spits back.

"But with no Paris in sight," Samantha laughs. "Pity. It's always been my favorite city."

"We have no need for idle flirtations."

Samantha allows her carefree expression to settle. "Fine." She steps back, to Thanatos' disappointment. "Nancy and her boyfriend are actually going to be relatively close by in a few minutes. They sure go through a lot of cell phones, but I was able to get this gem just a few minutes ago." Retrieving her phone and pulling up the text she sent herself from Sonny's phone, she thrusts it forward so Thanatos can see. "Sadly she appears to have wised up to your presence here, but she's hanging around Bellevue."

Thanatos squints as he reads it. "What is this?"

"It's this." Zoe hands him the yellow sticky note she'd written the plaintext on after encoding it. "'Hotel Griffin no longer safe. Bellevue Square fifteen hundred.' The code is obsolete, pretty easy to break, especially when the keyword is repeated several times in the text… as it was here. Creates visible patterns."

Thanos doesn't even bother to look, keeping his eyes locked on Samantha.

"What?" she snaps. "Geez, call Doppeler if you think I'm not on the level."

Turning to face his cousin again, Thanatos speaks. "I'm familiar with Doppeler. Several times I've used their services, although I've never made the acquaintance of this particular beauty." He returns the phone and paper to Samantha, his eyes darting from her hand to her face as he sends her a small, sly smile.

Mentally noting this information for his file, Samantha waits while they call her organization. Doppeler Institute for Independent Industrial Arts, a school ostensibly for high-end thieves but actually for spies, is the embodiment of that popular saying, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer," and the best of its type in the world. Governments contacted Doppeler to get more hands on deck for upholding national security. Criminals contacted Doppeler to acquire the worst ill-gotten and best protected goods, the type of stuff that's only known about through rumor. INR Inspector General Alexander Wolfe had sent his daughter there, or, more accurately, his life insurance had after a journalist exposed his covert position and toppled the first domino that would lead to his head being blown off.

"You check out," Thanatos declares after dropping his phone in his pocket, "and I forgive you for having designs on my sapphire. You have impeccable taste, and it was a long time ago."

"Well, thank you." Samantha replies. "And again, nothing personal. Talk to Tazza for closure if you like. Don't know which prison he's being held in, but it'd be easy for me to find out."

Thanos glares. "You are not welcome with us."

"Ah, Ksádelfos," Thanatos begins with a touch of a whine to his tone. "What about all the talk of reconnecting with family in the midst of lacking friends? Will you trust none of my desires?"

Thanos growls again, presumably because he's not fond of personal details being spilled to a stranger, although Samantha has enough experience with non-verbal auditory cues to recognize it as a growl of assent… reluctant though it be.

"I will be waiting at Bellevue Square at fourteen hundred hours, forty-five minutes from now. Shall we go over together or would you like to maintain separate transportation?"

"No," Thanos replies.

"No to going over together, or no to separate transportation?" She has an idea, but it still needs clarification. Samantha is thorough.

Thanatos chuckles. "Leave us be," he translates, "and we will come."

Samantha nods in satisfaction. They're truly tapped out now. Her hunch that they'd sent all their men to the shootout on Hilda's island seems to have been correct, since they're presently reduced to showing up in person. "As I said, I'm nothing if not accommodating. I'd already be walking now except I don't relish the thought of turning my back on that rifle, which I think merits at least the satisfaction of an idle curiosity."

"Understood," Thanatos replies affably. "I am a retired mercenary of the famous Ten Million, brother organization to Kronos."

Well. That explains why nothing came up in Hellenic Army records in pertaining to his sharpshooting skills.

Nodding again, Samantha turns her back and begins walking back down the way she came. With no car to pick her up she soon ends up at the bottom. Resisting the temptation to look around her, she pushes in a call to the 'Haha-You-Suck' contact. "I need to get to Bellevue Square from Seattle-Tacoma. Foot of the hill."

"Right away, Ms. Quick."

When the car arrives one minute later, Samantha thanks the driver, leaves him behind per protocol, and starts toward Seattle's largest suburb—Bellevue.

A blur of trees, grass, mountains, and rain brings her to the street bisecting Bellevue Square and Bellevue Arts Museum. As she's passing by, Samantha sees a black Jeep (complete with blacked-out windows) exactly like hers. She's tempted to wave to Justin and the others, but she knows better than that. Instead she heads toward the mall's back entrance, careful to find a path where she won't be within sight of Niobe. From there she heads to the women's restroom on the first floor, strolls to the handicapped stall, and shucks off her heels. Exhaling silently, she steps from the toilet seat to the top of the tank and raises her arms to the tiled ceiling.

When it doesn't budge, she grimaces and pushes harder. Damn the stupid mall for not letting her install one of her special sinks. The task she's dealing with right now easily becomes difficult, particularly when that part of the ceiling hasn't been opened in a while.

Or if it's been sealed, in which case she'll need to climb off the toilet, grab her electric saw, climb back on the toilet and use said saw, all without accidentally maiming herself in the process.

Finally, though, her tile gives way.

Samantha reaches an arm's length inside and pulls out a yellow eyelet summer dress, beige cardigan, African flats, and a long red wig. The costume satisfies her. Team Thanos is aware of Zoe, Chloe, and now Samantha. Bridget is her best bet. Not that Bridget would be caught dead with hair as long as this, but beggars couldn't be choosers at this particular moment. Zoe had planned on trimming the wig herself, but Justin had borrowed her barber scissors, and she isn't about to attempt the job with an electric saw.

Changing in the spacious handicapped stall is much more pleasant than changing in the car, but Samantha has a more tactical reason for doing so: if Thanos was watching her car and saw her step out as someone else, she'd be dead meat.

Samantha's so used to removing makeup that she's refined the task to completion in three minutes. After finishing, she applies a fresh coat of black eyeliner to the upper lids. Smearing pale pink foundation over her face and exposed calves, she takes a few seconds to spark an incessant internal chatter. She polishes off the look with pink lipstick.

Bridget's ready to go.

She pulls out a Bridget phone from the panel, turning it on and fondly eyeing the photo of her Scottish Terrier that serves as the phone's wallpaper. Then, stuffing the remains of her former alias back into the ceiling, she leaves the restroom and holds the door for somebody coming in, beaming at her.

After taking a few steps forward, she recognizes one of her rookies standing by the vending machines in a ridiculous penguin getup, complete with wig askew. She continues walking toward him and clears her throat.

His head jolts up. Despite being 6'3" and built like Thanos' double, the rookie looks like any other rookie—terrified. After being rejected from the army, espionage is the next best way to serve his country.

Bridget takes his arm. "Be my date, Frankie." With her free hand she smooths his wig to his brow. In a lower voice she adds, "First time for everything. For me, first time going through all my aliai within the hour. For you, first assignment and looking like you're all coked up."

"Z—Z—" he struggles for words, confused over her identity.

"Shhh." Forcing herself to keep her voice down, Bridget quarantines her anxiety to a disapproving look. Nobody's going to blow her cover, much less a greenhorn. "It's Bridget." Giving a little nod of satisfaction at his fixed hair, she pecks him on the cheek (secretly gagging at the layer of sweat on it) and straightens. "There's this great place I've heard about," she says, returning to a normal volume. "Just opened."

"Uh… is that so?" Frankie says, trying to make sense of their semi-romantic cover.

Bridget suppresses an eye roll. For this to be tolerable he'll have to give her something to work with. "Yes, it is so. Come on now, you've nothing to do. It's raining out. Worse'n Watten and London combined, it is."

Frankie blinks. "I don't know about that." His good-old-boy honesty sure isn't serving him well right now. Maybe he considers acting to be lying.

"It is, it is!" she repeats impatiently. "Never mind the hyperbole, lad! It feels that way, and that's what matters to me. Now come with me before I decide to change how I feel about you." Tugging at his arm, she drags him to the ice cream shop next to Foods Fundamental. "Are any of your friends here?"

"Well, yeah, Sendhil—"

"Well tell Sendhil to get over here! And then be ready for a fight 'cos he doesn't know we're going out. Both of you be ready since two strapping boys are better than one." Bridget stares at him, hard, hoping he'll get the hint. Two men to take down two men: Thanos and Thanatos.

The fog clears from his eyes. An air of determination soaks the air around him. Physical stuff: that's familiar enough to him. He was the star of his high school football team, after all.

Satisfied, she leans forward and whispers in his ear. "Go get him and meet me back here."

He leaves, soon passing out of sight. Meanwhile, Bridget peers over to the blonde sitting at a table in front of Foods Fundamental, sitting at a forty-five degree angle away from the people passing by. She smiles, proud; Niobe is more prone to sitting in the back, but she moved past that for the benefit of her character. And unlike Frankie, she did a fine job dressing. Niobe has a slightly fuller figure than Bridget, aka Zoe, aka Samantha, but it takes scrutiny to see it… and even then, it's difficult. Thanos and Thanatos won't notice at a glance. And by the time they're close enough, it'll be too late.

For all intents and purposes, she is Samantha.

Returning her eyes to the heavy foot traffic, Bridget frowns. Frankie and Sendhil aren't back yet.

She checks her phone. 13:52.

She looks up.

Her eyes widen.

Just what she'd dreaded.

Thanatos headed Niobe's way prematurely.

"Shit," she mutters, digging around in her purse for—yes—no, never mind, that's a pen—no, n—yes, palm-sized tranquilizer gun.

With her other hand she types furiously, staring at the screen while she walks blindly forward.

Bam.

Success.

"Oh! I'm terribly sorry," Bridget gushes as she picked herself up off the floor, extending her tranquilizer gun hand toward her victim.

A stranger.

The downside of not looking where you're going.

Forgetting the cordial attitude and swearing profusely, Bridget spins around and sees Thanatos leaning down and purring something into Niobe's ear.

Good god Bridget would owe her big for that one. What a creep.

Niobe jumps, and Thanatos jerks backward.

Bridget stomps toward the pair and grabs Thanatos' arm, wrenching him around and activating the needle. "Excuse me, you were supposed to meet me here!" she shrills as others turn and stare.

Shock fills his face, and his eyes go slightly milky.

But he doesn't fall.

Shit. Has he built some sort of tolerance to tranquilizers?

He's still awake after a few seconds. Through the haze his eyes snap in recognition. "Y—you," he says faintly.

Bridget punches his arm twice more with the gun between her fingers, hoping that it'll bring him down faster.

It doesn't.

His hand flies around her throat.

She knees his stomach.

It doesn't faze him. He must have tensed his muscles in anticipation of the blow.

Bridget throws her hands at his face.

Unfortunately Thanatos' arms are longer than hers.

His thumb slides toward her windpipe.

Damn it. So much for this being a quiet affair.

Her Adam's apple sears with pain.

Suddenly Thanatos is ripped away, knocking air back into her throat. Bridget sways and grabs the back of Niobe's chair.

Nothing doing. Instinctively her arm shoots out to grab another nearby chair as Frankie and Sendhil work him over something good.

She's only just caught her breath again when Thanatos is subdued, lying prostate in front of a crowd that looks like it doesn't dare breathe.

Niobe is displaying a remarkable amount of composure. Aside from being a little paler than normal, she doesn't look at all disturbed.

Bridget glares at Frankie and Sendhil, who now appear a little less brave despite their feat. She walks close to them so she can whisper. "Get him in MS," she rasps to Sendhil. "Make sure he talks to no one. No one." That's technically the defining characteristic of Maximum Security, complete isolation, but there are bigger problems right now than being redundant.

Namely the possibility that Thanatos will find a way to communicate important facts to Thanos, such as detailed physical descriptions of his assailants.

And Frankie and Sendhil may have fucked up by not showing up on time, but they don't deserve that. Sendhil, at least, will be waylaid at HQ for some time to come with Thanatos to worry about securing. Frankie's facing the brunt of the danger.

Bridget places a hand on Niobe's shoulder, mutters "Come with me," then grabs Frankie and heads for the employee bathroom. Once the door is locked behind the three, Bridget turns on an anti-listening device and whirls on Frankie. "You know what the original plan was? You and me get to Thanatos before Thanatos gets to Niobe. I use the tranquilizer gun, you catch him and take him to Sendhil. If there are delays with the tranquilizer, you hit him, he goes to sleep, then Sendhil shows up claiming to take him to the entrance for an ambulance he called. See how great it is with backup? Quiet. Easy. No foul-ups. Why the hell were you late?"

"Why are you talking like an Brit?" Niobe meekly cuts in.

"I'm sorry," Frankie mutters at his shoes. "Sendhil spotted Thanos giving some other agents the slip. They needed a couple more to take him down, and I thought that our orders were that Thanos was the priority instead of Thanatos."

"No. I give you an order, you do it, no matter if it conflicts with what I said before. Is Thanos still here?"

"I don't know." Frankie frowns. "He got past all of us."

Zoe shakes her head and pinches the bridge of her nose. "Okay. Now you're assigned to Niobe. As in, I don't care if Thanos or Jesus Christ shows up—don't go after them. You're in charge of not letting anything happen to her."

A choking sound brings Bridget's and Frankie's attention back to Niobe.

Her face is crumbling. "I'm so confused."

Bridget lays a hand on her shoulder. "I know. I thought it'd be safer if you didn't know everything about me. I'll explain everything later. Iposxome."

Niobe meets her eyes, slightly calmed by the use of her native language.

Bridget barges out of the bathroom, ignoring the complaints of employees, and dials for Justin. "Get in the mall. Hades is here. Don't let Kestrel out of your sight, and don't let Crow out of your reach."


	14. Chapter 14

Sonny is chomping at the leash, foaming at the mouth, turned into the mad Koko Kringle bandit he's hated for so many years.

There's only one thing he cares about more than Koko Kringles lately, and there's some crazy guy out there trying to kill her.

After ending the call with Zoe, Justin turns around to face him, Nancy, and Rentaro.

"She didn't tell you I had to stay close by," Sonny points out.

"I believe that was implied. Just because I'm supposed to especially look out for Kestrel and Crow doesn't mean that I'm not supposed to look out for you, Wren. Be good. Now, let's move."

They spring out of the car like restless cobras. Lagging behind with Rentaro to help Justin out, Sonny watches Nancy float forward just behind Justin.

Turning to Rentaro he asks, "So how has your day been besides all this hectic stuff?"

"Not bad." Rentaro scratches the tip of his ear. "I just finished a robot mouse that's successful."

"Neat! What does it do?"

"Mainly antagonizes the robot cat, but I also engineered a recording ability for discreet eavesdropping at a closer range than the device I've been using the past few minutes. The skin also camouflages to the surroundings."

That's all the conversation they have before Nancy marches up to a blonde woman in a red dress with her back turned.

A tall, stocky man walks forward and lays an arm across her path.

Sonny bounds forward.

But Justin does at the same time, and his presence hints the man to back off.

The woman turns.

"S—" Nancy blinks and stutters incomprehensibly for a few seconds.

Samantha Quick's eyes have turned green. And she looks terrified, an expression that's foreign to the spy.

"Ahem. Over here."

Sonny sees her head shift over to a more petite redheaded woman he recognizes as Zoe in disguise.

Bridget chuckles. "Niobe, go chang—oh," she says.

"What's wrong?" Nancy asks casually.

"Well, the closest set of clothes for her are… uh, similar."

"You mean you two were twins for a little while? Sorry I missed that."

"Yeah, Kestrel, look and learn. This is how you steal an alias. You don't. Not until you're told to."

"Okay, fine, point taken. So what are we dealing with here?"

Sonny moves closer to better hear the conversation, looking behind him to make sure Rentaro is following.

"Thanos. Here. My friend Frankie—"

The tall man nods at them—

"He told me that Hades was headed this way." She points toward the more crowded section of the mall. "So let's all go, everybody, now. Special rules. Kestrel, you never get ahead of me."

Nancy scoffs.

Bridget, aka Zoe, holds up the tranquilizer gun. "You fancy? I can have you take a short nap and Frankie babysit you or, better yet, your boyfriend can, which means he'll miss out on the action. What do you think of that, Wren?"

Sonny's heart jolts at the possibility. "No," he says loudly.

Shaking her head, Nancy mutters, "Fine."

"Okay." Zoe smiles. "Wren, you never get ahead of me, either. Crow, you never get ahead of K2. One, two, three, go. If he's not at the exit we'll regroup there anyway. K2, call my favorite cab company. I have a feeling the chase won't end here."

They get moving, walking briskly instead of running to avoid being conspicuous. Bridget's red hair glares at them like an ultimatum. Sonny catches up easily to Nancy just by picking up the pace a little, being taller than she is. They both end up right behind Zoe, whose feet are whirring forward like they're motorized… and Sonny can tell she's still holding back for their benefit.

Nancy inches her head to the side, noticing him without removing Zoe from her sight. "You finished with Hades' passport, right?"

"Yep."

"Pluto's too?"

"Yep."

"Wren," Zoe breaks into their exchange, "can you get back into Hades' phone for Location Services? We need to know where he is, since he pretty clearly isn't here."

"Yeah, but if it's turned off it'll take me a little while longer to figure that out since I'll need to get creative. Not a problem for me, just a heads up."

She nods.

"You and Kestrel will stick close together," he says, "right?"

She nods again. "Why? You worried?"

"Since she's still a target, yeah."

"Hades is all alone, and he doesn't have the gun skills his cousin has. His style is hands on throat, and if that's what he wants we'll see him since he'll need to be close by to accomplish that. And believe me, if he had any men to spare, he wouldn't have sent Pluto to Samantha. Other Samantha."

"But what if he just wants you to think that and there's another trained shooter who's prepared to—" Sonny can't finish the sentence. His vision starts going gray. No, he blinks. Not now. Can't slide further down this path.

"That virtually never happens, especially if you look at their pattern of behavior before. When they had men to dispose, they disposed them. And Hades and Pluto aren't the type of guys to change their tactics, not when their training has been so far ingrained into them and their identities. Hitman and mercenary. You do the math." She clamps a hand down on his shoulder so hard he nearly jumps with surprise. "Plus, Hippie, you're looking out for her."

They continue moving, Zoe steering him forward with her iron grip, Nancy trotting so close behind them Sonny can feel her breath shift the hairs on his neck. Thanos is nearby, and if Nancy had her way she wouldn't be waiting for the others. Knowing he'll be close enough to help her if anything bad happens, Sonny buries himself in his phone and lets his mind settle.

Thanos may not be technically minded, but he has certainly taken precautions with his phone. Location Services is turned off, as Sonny expected. Biting the inside of his cheek, he tries another trick…

Feeling eyes over his shoulder, Sonny looks up. Zoe's staring holes into his phone. She looks up to him. "I'm guessing this is the 'little while longer' option?"

"Yyyyyyeah," Sonny replies, blinking.

"Fine. Don't go crazy on me." Zoe says, turning back to Nancy. "Speaking of which, have I ever told you about Cousin Crazy?"

"No," Nancy replies after a slight hesitation.

"Well, you remember Alec Fell, right?"

"I…" the same taken-aback tone soaks her voice. "I guess so, yeah."

Sonny swipes his finger across the screen, prompting a loading bar.

"I helped track down his sister. He told me that she married into kind of a crazy family. World War II double agent, plus this lady who lost her mind and flew around northern Ireland for seventy years. Long white hair, looked and screamed like a banshee."

"That sounds famil…" Nancy trails off. "…Fiona Malloy?"

The loading bar crawls across the screen, stopping with a centimeter left. Sonny grits his teeth.

"Yeah, I couldn't tell you the name. Wasn't really paying attention. Pretty sure people were shooting at us. Kind of like they were yesterday." Anyway, Miss Banshee Lady is his and his sister's fourth cousin-in-law once removed. He told me a few stories about her, and I dubbed her Cousin Crazy. She's my readily-referenceable archetype of certifiability. I use it to keep Justin in line."

"That isn't very nice, you know," Nancy replies. "If this is the person I think you're talking about, she lost her parents in a horrific accident and grew up completely alone."

"She strikes me as the type of person who doesn't care if other people call her crazy. Besides, I'm not saying she shouldn't be crazy. I'm just saying she is crazy."

Quickening his pace, Sonny makes up for lagging behind. He needs a place with better signal.

As if the phone could hear him it finally closes the gap to the end of the loading bar. Sonny's eyes scan over it, brow wrinkling with concentration. "He's ten miles away," he announces to Nancy and Zoe. "Thanos just sent a text thirty seconds ago to an unknown number. I'm downloading it right now—"

A loud boom and series of screams divert their eyes.

The nearest women's restroom is up in flames and smoke. Women shielding their eyes and mouths tumble out tripping blindly over each other's backs, heels, and arms, coughing en route and screaming once they're out.

"Shit! I'm getting really goddamn sick of this!" Zoe yells.

Justin trots up to them, Rentaro quick on his heels.

The minute he's there, Zoe tears off toward the explosion site.

"'Good job—'" Sonny begins reading the text he intercepted from Thanos' phone. His eyes dart ahead of his mouth, which falters. "'Good job keeping your "enemies" close, Ms. Quick.'" He looks up to Nancy. "Who's Ms. Quick?"

"Samantha. Z—I mean, Infinitum," Nancy replies grimly. "That's the alias she was using right before we showed up."

"So he sent a text to Infinitum?" Sonny asks, puzzled. "How come we didn't hear it just now?"

Nancy nods toward Zoe, who's running back. "Just as I thought," she said. "They exploded Samantha's phone which I left in the bathroom with the rest of her things. If I still had it with me, we'd all be goners. I think that's what he's counting on. Called an ambulance. We need to get out of here. And now the question I was going to ask before being so rudely interrupted: how can you tell he's ten miles away, Sonny?"

"His Location Services is off, but I can track how long it takes him to send each text using a simple app I made. That tells me almost the exact amount of signal he has, which tells me the geographical location give or take a mile. I mean, two different locations might have four bars signal, but one location could take 6.85 seconds to send a text while the other one takes 7.82. It looks like it's north along Lake Washington—wait." Sonny squints. "He's sending something else from his phone to—" he hands his phone to Zoe. "What's that?"

"Greek phone number."

Sonny exits out of the signal-tracking app and goes after the Greek number.

"What are you doing?"

"Don't worry. The program's still running. If someone is still here in the mall with his sights on you or Nancy we should know about it."

"Thanos thinks he killed us. He wasn't in sight when Thanatos blew my cover. I know because I would've seen him."

"Location Services are on for that phone." Sonny thumbs around his phone. "Good, just outside Heraklion Airport in Crete. That's far enough away I guess."

"So Thanos is likely headed to the airport," Zoe mutters.

"Right. Let's see—" Sonny reopens the signal-tracking app, redirecting his attention to Thanos' phone. "The text he's trying to send says, '1120.' It's been over a minute and hasn't sent yet. He probably doesn't have signal, and airports are notorious for that. Now he's 14 miles away, Infinitum. At Kenmore Air Harbor. We should get over—" Sonny looks up at Zoe, who's already raising her phone to her ear.

"Need a car, Sears Entrance." She pauses. "This is Bridget."

"Infinitum, how could he have caused the explosion?" Justin asks her once she's done. "Did he have access to your phone?"

"Thanatos did." Zoe picks up her pace just short of a sprint. The others follow. "I handed my phone to him so he could see that text I 'intercepted' from Sonny's phone about meeting Nancy. I watched him the whole time he was handling it. Not many times they can pull the wool over my eyes." Her eyes harden with frustration. "I guess that text he just now sent activated the explosive device. As a mercenary and hitman, respectively, they must have a pretty comprehensive knowledge of weapons, including covert ones. Must've been a precaution since he didn't activate it until now, and I guess he thought I was closer to Nancy than I actually was. At least now his conscious is clear about leaving the country with the job done, or so he thinks."

Sonny's blood chills at her words. He feels his mind start to travel like it always used to before this assignment. But it goes to the bad stuff instead of the good.

Moving air washes over his face as they arrive at the entrance. It wakes him up. His gaze returns to his phone. He keeps working. The others pile into the car while he trails behind. Justin thanks the driver while Zoe shoves him out. Then he climbs into the front passenger seat.

Thanos hasn't sent any texts since the Greek number, leaving Sonny no way to determine his exact current location. Kenmore isn't the biggest airport, but every airport is too big to fuck around in.

Despair begins eroding his skin.

Fighting off a sudden wave of exhaustion, Sonny redirects his eyes to nature. That always gives him more energy.

The gray of the windows makes the world outside look ashen. The leaves of trees are smaller and shriveled, the grass a blur as the car gets moving. A handful of cars coagulate behind them, including another black car with black windows. Spies seem to flock to the Pacific Northwest.

That's it!

Nature.

Weather.

Temperature.

Sonny's eyes snap back into focus.

An article he'd read last week had been able to bridge the gap between those and location. Maybe he can, too.

Sonny saves the data on his signal-tracking app and closes it. Fist he pulls up the Weather App and skims for the most relevant information. Then he hacks into Thanos' phone again through the charger port. This time he goes to battery information. "He's inside the airport. At passport control."

"Now how on Earth can you possibly know that?" Justin asks him.

"Comparing phone battery temperature, outside temperature, room temperature, how quickly the battery wears down. Outside temperature influences a phone's battery temperature, but he's no longer outside. His battery is right now 82 degrees, just up from 78 two minutes ago and 81 one minute ago. And it's not in his pocket, since he's using it… the power level has gone down three percent in five minutes. Theoretically the temperature could've heated up because of extra use, but he hasn't been using it extra. I can track what he's doing on his phone and the battery wear has been consistent. So if the phone isn't in his pocket and isn't being overused, then it's heating up because of a change in ambient temperature. I flew into Kenmore for my graduate school interview, and they kept it right at room temperature. All except for the security line, which was a little warm due to all the people standing close together. And since Thanos can't have even made it to security because of his faulty passport, he must be in the line for passport control." Suddenly something occurs to Sonny. His muscles freeze. "What if he's taking a domestic flight?"

"We've got him trapped in the country," Zoe quickly replies. "Even if he takes a flight to Kentucky he's got nowhere to hide. We have enough evidence against him and his cousin now to consider him a national threat and I can get people out there before he can finish saying galaktoboureko. Don't worry. That bastard's not getting away. Great job figuring out the rest. Before inviting you out with us I was a little afraid the New Zealand success was a fluke and you'd just kind of be Nancy's tagalong. But you're not. We'll go straight to passport control."

"If you ever thought that, you don't know Sonny." Nancy turns her head and sends him a winning smile.

Sonny's still a little frazzled from his mental scare the moment before. But slowly he registers the praise. His chest swells with pride, and the rest of the car ride is spent in a state between hypervigilance and the most realistic types of dreams, the ones you remember days later but can't remember if they actually happened or not.

Zoe pulls up to the main entrance, mutters her thanks that this is a small airport with non-confusing components, and parks the car clumsily over the red curb.

"Uh, isn't that—" Rentaro begins, gesturing to the paint.

"I'll deal with it later," Zoe says, slamming the door and walking pointedly towards the entrance. "Given the time sensitivity, I don't think my superiors will mind."

Nancy devotes a moment's admiration to the rebellion before following her.

Sonny stifles a laugh. For being the daughter of a lawyer, she's a lot less law-abiding than she'll have people believe. He hears Justin muttering to Rentaro behind him, feels the clammy Pacific wind ahead. He walks into it, day-old doubts and stresses dropping off his soles and sticking to his footprints.

Zoe's waiting inside for them, and once they catch up she continues forward and flashes a badge at the person at the check-in desk. "We need to get past. We're looking for this man. Armed and dangerous." She pulls out a photo of Thanos that Sonny recognizes from the _Persephone in Winter_ program.

Even though the cast was made up of criminals, it's still a shame he didn't get to see it. Or, more accurately, a shame he didn't go to opening night. Maybe his mother and grandfather would have had a good time within five miles of each other for a change. Jamila probably would've liked it, too. In any case, when he called them and said the performance they were supposed to attend wouldn't be happening after all, they all treated it like they were skirting an inconvenience.

Sonny places a hand on each side of his head and closes his eyes. He can't think of past annoyances now that there are current ones to deal with.

"Thanks. We'll let you know when he's in custody."

"We'll have a security officer escort you there." The check-in attendant waves to somebody just out of their sightline, who comes over.

Zoe looks impatient, but she goes along with it. In two minutes flat they're at passport control. She squints at the triple line of people, then shakes her head and gets a pair of glasses from her purse. "No. Nope. Not him. No."

"Ma'am, maybe he passed here and went to security."

"No, he didn't."

"How do you know that?"

Sonny wonders if he should speak up.

"That's classified," she says.

Well. Takes care of that problem.

Nancy's eyes narrow in a way that make her nearly identical to Zoe, especially with the red wig Zoe's wearing right now. At some point her neck stops rotating. Her fingers close around Sonny's wrist.

He follows her gaze.

Thanks to the distance and how closely people cluster, Sonny can only narrow her scrutiny down to about three people at the front of the middle line: a stout brunette balding man, a lanky guy with deep red hair, and a dark-haired, light-skinned man of medium height.

He shakes his head. "Too short."

She smiles. "Not him."

Sonny looks harder. "I don't…" His eyes trudge along the spotted, wrinkled neck of the balding man to the smooth olive bicep of—

He leans forward. "He's a daywalker. Never actually seen one befo…" Just as abruptly he recoils, sharply drawing breath. "By Anu, it's him in a wig."

"What's that?" Zoe asks, cutting off her conversation with the security guard.

Nancy nods toward the newly-ginger Thanos.

Zoe whirls back around. "Hey officer, forget what I said before. Look for a guy named Vladimir Thanatos with red hair. I think our friend is trying to slip by using that disguise."

Justin, catching the eye of someone nearby, walks toward him.

Interest piqued, Sonny looks over.

Justin and the stranger engage in some conversation. Justin nods over at Thanos. After that, the stranger looks over his shoulder and summons another stranger.

Nancy, following Sonny's stare, leans over and mutters, "Must be some of Infinitum's spy friends."

Confirming her theory, they start heading over to Thanos along with the security officer Zoe was just talking to. Justin stays put, looking at Zoe for confirmation.

She sends him a nod.

Receiving his passport back, Thanos stands still for a moment. Then, appearing agitated, he begins waving it around and speaking heatedly in a different language.

Zoe nods again, adjusting her glasses. "That's Thanatos' passport he just gave him, all right. Thank god for telescopic vision spy glasses."

The three men start closing in on him, now no more than thirty feet away.

Suddenly Thanos wrenches around like he senses it. After one second of scanning the area he bolts back through the line, scattering people in every direction.

Zoe runs in front of the rest of them directly in his path. Justin careens in from the side.

Sonny follows Nancy's strategy of standing still amidst the unanimous movement. She turns slightly to the left. He turns slightly to the right. He isn't sure where Rentaro is, but Rentaro's not the one Thanos is trying to kill.

Thanos feints out of Justin's path, sending him toppling to the floor nose first. He easily shoves Zoe out of the way. Then he starts cutting a path subtly to their left.

Nancy bends her knees, readying herself for a sprint. Sonny prepares to spring the opposite direction but she grabs his arm. "Stay with me," she commands.

But they don't have enough people with the security officer and the spies fanning behind Thanos, so Sonny shoves ahead of her and does the next best thing he can think of: running directly for him.

It might not have been the smartest thing under pressure, which is par for the course for Sonny. Unfortunately Thanos anticipates his move in just enough time to turn away. They bump sides instead of head-on. Sonny staggers but stays upright, spinning around just in time to see the slightly-slowed Thanos head straight for Nancy.

She knocks a fist at his temple.

He turns his head. The blow glances off.

She sways forward and grabs his arm to subdue him.

Sonny's heart stops with dread. She doesn't remember what he's here to do.

In a blur Thanos' hand goes for her throat.

Nancy jolts back. With wide eyes she loses her balance.

Flies to the floor.

Thanos laughs a terrible laugh.

Sonny doesn't remember running toward them but he's there in the middle of this terrible dance. He freezes, remembering he has no idea what to do in a physical encounter.

Then picks up his feet again and rams straight into his back.

Thanos staggers, turns, growls.

Instinctively Sonny takes two steps backward, holding his arms in front of him.

He's been to a lot of places, seen a lot of things.

But he's never seen anything so poetically terrible in his life as those haggard, empty black eyes.

Thanos looks around and growls again. Without warning he turns and begins running.

Nancy's head raises slowly. More fear than he's ever seen in all the time knowing her.

Catching his breath, Sonny tears after Thanos. Justin and Zoe pop up at his left. The security officer and other spies appear at his right. None say a word, bound by their chorus of labored breaths. They don't have the air to waste.

He's gaining distance.

Sonny grits his teeth and pumps his legs harder.

It isn't enough.

Not for him, anyway. Zoe and the airport security are inching closer and closer.

A woman gets out of a dark car, staring at the spectacle.

Get away, drive away, Sonny begs her in his mind, vision blurring with sudden tears. No more bystander casualties.

Thanos veers to the right straight into her path. He jerks around and grabs for Zoe's throat.

Like Nancy she falls backward. Unlike her, she regains her balance.

And unlike Nancy she isn't Thanos' ultimate target, not in how quickly he starts to run again.

By the time she's fully recovered he's pushing past the cars with only the security guard in pursuit.

The woman bystander finally comes to her senses and gets back in her car, leaving Sonny both overjoyed and chagrined.

The security guard, a clean decade or two older than Thanos, is starting to fall behind with the exertion of the chase.

Sonny feels more frustration build behind his eyes. He leaps two, three more steps. But he falls to his knees, gasping. A sharp pain builds in his abdomen. Too often he forgets he's left with the remnants of a childhood disease. All he can do is watch, helpless, as Thanos moves through the maze of cars, as the ghosts of peritonitis serrate his breaths between each aching rib.

Suddenly a car door swings open.

Thanos slams into it.

The same blonde woman steps out in one sleek movement, holding a large army-grade flashlight in her right hand.

Thanos starts to sit up.

She swings it across the path disrupted by his head. Again he falls to the ground, lying still this time.

"My fear is not worth a passing thought?" Niobe sneers at the body. The flashlight trembles in her hand, newly red at the bulb. "Fuck you."

Sonny eyes her wig, dislodged by the force of her movements. She tears it off and her brown hair untwists and flies over one shoulder.

His vision goes gray at the corners. Quickly Sonny throws his head between his knees, but it doesn't quite make it there before he falls to the side.

"Hey." Thump.

He opens his eyes.

Zoe's nudging him with her foot.

"Are you crazy? Deliberately running into a psychopath not once but twice?"

"Serrrrry Infi'um," he slurs in response. At least he remembers her code name even in semi-consciousness. For the second time that day he has specific reason to be proud of himself.

"Kestrel, actually."

Sonny's eyes blink open.

His girlfriend is glaring at him. Apart from her, clockwise, Justin, Zoe, Rentaro, and Niobe watch as he wakes up. The five points of their faces form a star. Zoe laughs. "I haven't gotten on your case quite that often," she remarks.

"You," he points to Niobe. "Good job."

"Thank you." She smirks. But despite the amusement there are lingering tear tracks on her face.

Maybe she had to grow into her courageous actions of a few minutes ago, like Sonny himself did. None of this feels quite real to Sonny, but at the same time, and without being able to explain it, he knows he's changed somewhere between the past few days and now.

"Speaking of crazy," Zoe turns to the woman, "what in the actual fuck are you doing here, Niobe?"

"I followed you. When we were at the mall, Frankie was kind enough to point out the black car in the lot across the street. He didn't have any time to stop me. Since Colin had to leave at a moment's notice, he left his keys in the ignition."

"It's Justin, actually," he replies with a small smile. His eyes go sheepishly to Zoe.

But there's agreement in her expression. "I'm Zoe Wolfe," she says to Niobe. "And to answer your question from like, an hour ago, I talk like an American because I am an American. When I'm not being anybody else, anyway."

"That…" Niobe shakes her head, then laughs. "That explains a lot."

"Say, you're pretty much a natural at this spy thing. Want to consider doing it full time, since the art thing hasn't exactly been working for you lately?"

Niobe's eyebrows rise in surprise, followed by an undoctored response of humility.

The smile.

Her eyes glaze over, and Sonny sees the familiar progression from his own mind. She walks a little away to the slow but exponentially accelerating rhythm of her thoughts.

Zoe catches Justin's gaze and jerks her head around at the retreating figure.

Following her logic, Justin goes after her. Sonny can't hear their exchange, but he doesn't need to. It's audible enough in his mind.

Then Zoe takes a few steps backward and, following the familiar pattern of the past two days, pulls out her phone. "Hello, F—yes, yes, this is Zoe—uh huh, yea—Fr—Frank—Frankie? Niobe is here. Yes, Niobe's here. Quit hyperventilating. Relax. You did good your first time around."

Sonny's own eyes lock on Nancy's. For the first time in five days they're not only alone but alone, without life-threatening situations on their hands.

Although he has to admit he prefers the life-threatening stuff to school, which threatens his life via the danger he'll expire of boredom.

"Why would he use Thanatos' passport?" he asks her.

"He didn't expect you to know to wreck that one, too." Nancy bites her lip. "You have no idea how glad I am to know you."

"Even after ramming into a dangerous psychopath twice?"

"After you tell me for months in a row that I've got to be careful."

"Well, in my defense, my crazy ideas seemed to work this time. He slowed down enough. Plus, I think I've made it clear enough—and I'm sorry if I didn't—that I approve of calculated risks for both of us."

"And driving a boat without a license is a calculated risk now?"

His head rises sharply.

There's no malice to her voice, though, even though she's trying her hardest to look serious.

"Sure seems that way when there isn't a such thing as regular oncoming boat traffic," he mutters. "Although, yeah, in hindsight, that was definitely almost as unnecessarily dangerous as your wanting to stay with Inanna back in Mexico. So no repeats planned on that front."

"Well, that's good."

Sonny sits up to get a better look at how Nancy's held up these past few days.

Better than him, apparently, although he can't really see. One of his eyes is oddly blurrier than the other.

Nancy fixes his glasses on his face with a growing smile. Sonny's hand goes to her shoulder, and he kisses her. Her lips, roughened by too much biting and too little chapstick over the stressful past few days, shift slowly and familiarly against his. Her hand goes to his, thumb stroking sideways over the heel of his palm. Then something small and rectangular is placed into it with her other hand.

She breaks away and grins, eyes going down to his phone.

His regular phone.

Once upon a time he dreaded the prospect of seeing it ever again. Now he wants to kiss it and frame it on his wall. It's a sign of surviving this ordeal.

"I thought you'd want to talk to Jamila," she murmurs.

"Uh…" he trails off, remembering where he left things off with her. "Want is maybe a strong word?"

Nancy laughs, lowering her head. "Amend it to 'should,' then. I guess I'm terrible."

He dips forward to brush her lips. "Impossible," he smiles. Pulling away, he turns on his phone.

Winces at the twenty-six missed calls.

It rings again.

Gulping, he picks up.

"THE WORLD ISN'T BIG ENOUGH TO HIDE FROM ME SEUNG JOON—"


	15. Making Union

Sonny never liked the immediate process of settling back into a place, so he lets Nancy do all the unpacking. Not that there's much to do, and she's almost done.

Noticing that her pager from Venice is still out from before they left, Nancy smiles and picks it up. On a whim she turns it on.

Blank screen.

Some uneven footsteps clomp behind her. "What'reyou sill doing withathing anyway? Sophiauhlee pissed."

Turning around, Nancy escorts Zoe to their sofa, where she falls in an indignant heap. "Cannbelieve Justin fucking left me here. Tha'bastard inebriate wazzupposedta drive me home butazzusual forgot his car and aprenly me."

"Well, he probably knew we weren't heartless enough to kick you out," Sonny says, cracking a grin.

"Not quite heartless enough," Nancy mutters, nostalgia giving way to irritation.

"Now, now, we're not heartless at all." Sonny moves to stand next to her. "It's almost like having a kid."

Zoe laughs at this for exactly four seconds before falling asleep. Her quiet snores soon fill the apartment.

Nancy turns to him with a reproving expression. "I told you not to keep filling her drink."

"That was Niobe, not me."

She double takes. "Niobe? If not you wouldn't it have been J—"

"No, it was Niobe."

"Well." Nancy pauses, taking enough time to recollect her prim party disapproval. "At the very least it seems like everybody had a good time."

"Yeah, even you."

Nancy's smile returns. "Congratulations on passing your thesis defense. You definitely earned this celebration."

Sonny laughs. "Yeah, although I'm surprised they still wanted to give it to me after I missed a week of classes."

"The merit of your achievements doesn't change, no matter how much time passes." Her eyes sparkle. "Even the ones that only we and MI6 know about."

Finding her smile infectious, Sonny takes Nancy's hands and swings them gently back and forth. "So we're done with the assignment, I finished Jamila's pamphlet and passed my thesis defense, and you caught up on all your coursework and newspaper assignments. We're just living for us right now."

"Feels nice." Nancy chuckles. "There's been something I've been wanting to talk to you about."

Sonny feels himself brighten. "You're getting that extra shipment of Koko Kringles after all?"

She shakes her head.

His shoulders slump forward. "Who steals chocolate off of people's porches, anyway?" he mutters, turning his head to the side as he muses.

"Are you feeling all right today? Any abdominal trouble?"

"Yeah. I mean, no trouble. Why? What do you want to talk about?"

"Uh… well, that."

"Oh." Sonny stops talking, stops thinking even, momentarily thrown off guard. This is still on her mind after two weeks?

"I just get kind of worried," she continues. "We were both alone for a while after Thanos outran us."

"I overdid it." He waves a hand. "I always do."

"I know that's the type of thing that's hard to know until you've already done it." Nancy looks down and bites her lip, frowning. "And even aside from that things were pretty intense. Do you—I mean, would you—will you—"

Sonny tucks a stray tuft of hair behind her ear. "Yeah?"

"Assignments like this again?" she finally finishes in a rush. "I don't plan on joining any agencies, still want to do things on my own, but sometimes it gets that bad even when the assignment isn't with an organization."

"Are you kidding me?" Sonny laughs, hands rising to her forearms so he can frame her to meet his eyes. "Nancy, I'm with you for keeps."

She relaxes against his palms. "That's not exactly what I was asking, but still on point."

"Well, dealing with dangerous stuff and people is who you are. Even if you wanted your life to quiet down at some point, you'd still be dealing with a lot of the people you pissed off."

Leaning forward so her forehead brushes his chin, Nancy whispers, "I love you."

Sonny thought so, but it's nice hearing it. It lifts him clear into outer space. "I love you too. Whether you're solving cases, writing newspaper stories, sleeping, breathing." He wraps his arms around her back, pulling her to him and resting his head on hers. In some vague recess of his mind, he knows that this is his first experience of such high happiness—the cosmic, luminous happiness that inspires the Earth to perpetual rotation, puts the magic in people's feet to get them out of bed every day—that hasn't happened when he's alone and reconstructing all the stories Grandpa Jin told him.

"What are you thinking about?" Nancy asks.

It's weird how every time she asks that, he forgets. Thoughts die like people, but you'd think some stick around longer than others. So Sonny glides onto the next topic like he always does, saying simply, "So I've been wondering something, too."

"What's that?"

"Why is Thanos Thanos' first name and Thanatos Thanatos' last name? They sound similar until you realize the patterns of their names aren't all that similar."

"Hmmm. You'd have to ask Zoe."

Snort. Sputter. "Ask me what?"

Nancy rolls her eyes. At least she sounds slightly more sober this time around. "Nothing."

"How quickly 'something' turns to 'nothing.' Cousin Crazy returns."

"Maybe crazy isn't the right word for her," Nancy retorts.

"Psssh." Zoe scoots up on the couch so she can look her challenger in the eye. (Sonny, in an unusually helpful mood, releases Nancy from his embrace and goes to put away some things in the kitchen.) "Being diplomatic is such a waste of time, Nancy. You're not going to hurt her feelings from three thousand miles away."

"The only times diplomacy is wasted is in life-threatening situations or on people who won't change otherwise."

"Okay, well, when aren't our lives being threatened? Me a spy, you a detective? And as for people who won't change otherwise, yeah, maybe being blunt isn't a great way to coax an aspiring suicide off the top of a building, but other than that most people are still going to do what you say whether you're being honest or nice. So why say 'Please?' Just to save a little bristling on their part? Believe me, it's a total waste of time."

"I guess we'll have to agree to disagree."

"Sorry, what was that? I couldn't hear you over the sound of my own yawn." This statement turns out to be oddly prophetic, as Zoe falls right back to sleep after it.

Nancy smiles in spite of herself.

Sonny sees it.

The clock forgets to sound its seconds as the moment drags on. He and Nancy become the reigning rulers of that corner of time, in this corner of space. Every bit as long-lived as the Annunaki.

The spell is broken by a yawn, though, which soon becomes two.

Nancy starts to yawn again.

Sonny raises a hand and shakes his head. "Only one yawn per person." He breaks into a grin. "Should we turn in?"

"And sleep forever? Sounds like a plan."

So they walk, hand loosely in hand, to the block of space in their studio apartment they've sectioned off from the rest of the sprawling room, their corner of their corner.

~

Eyeing the setting sun, Justin attempts to quicken his pace and get to the end of the block before WALK turns into DON'T WALK. There are spirals in his calves though, mostly having to do with exhaustion although he had a little to drink at Sonny's party, and he has trouble walking in a straight line right now as a result.

It's not that he has bad night vision; on the contrary, he's learned to love the grainy picture sight takes on in darkness, greater resembling a mosaic than daylight, learned to embrace the inability to see anything but the outline of his hands, like he's a coloring book waiting to be colored in.

It's entirely that he doesn't want this night to end like every other one does for him, alone and largely sightless.

And after he finishes walking Niobe to her flat, he'll be fortunate if there's enough daylight to escort him home.

Head down and hands hooked in his pockets, he sneaks a glance at her. She's eyeing a meander on the building next to them.

Justin should probably talk to her, out of courtesy if nothing else. "So why do you have an apartment here?" he asks. "Zoe didn't think you lived in Seattle."

"I don't." Niobe turns her head to look at him. "It's a friend's."

"Ah." Justin pauses, thinking of new conversation topics. "Do you think that you should have given Zoe so much to drink back there?"

"Only enough to render her immobile." Niobe shrugs casually, although a smirk pushes up her mouth. "Otherwise I knew she'd never leave us alone. When she drinks she gets clingy."

"That is… true." Justin blinks. "Shockingly perceptive. I must confess I never noticed it before. Most of the time she hates the sight of other people, but not when…" he trails off, pondering first her insight and then its implications, and they fall into a comfortable silence for a while.

"See? Now wasn't that fun?" Niobe pipes up, wrapping her arms around herself and sidling closer to him in the cool Seattle night air.

"Not particularly," says Justin, although he's undoubtedly smiling.

"Yes, when Zoe got up on that wobbly table and serenaded us with the 'Fuck you, fuck you very much' song."

"Entirely juvenile behavior. I was surprised at her." A laugh bubbles to his lips nonetheless, although it's more the effect of Niobe's accent on English expletives. It gives them a charming, classy, whimsical air. "At least Dagny was able to come for a few minutes. That was a nice surprise. It seemed to make her happy."

"Yes. They're inspiring."

"How so?"

"They're practically never around one another, but it's so apparent they're in love."

"Mmm," Justin muses.

"I could never do that."

"How do you prefer to love?"

"I don't know," Niobe replies delicately.

They've reached his flat. Justin stops by habit. When Niobe stops, too, he laughs self-consciously. "Where I live," he says.

"You didn't say we'd be passing it." She frowns.

"It's not terribly important. Sounds like your place isn't too far from here."

"I can go by myself. Or…" she trails off, coloring and looking at the bricks making up his building.

It all stops here except the solitude, which will pick up right where it left off. Justin almost looks around for the dead end sign as the wind picks up, a burst of breeze pushing Niobe's long loose hair to her lustrous cheeks in closer proximity to her eyelashes.

It does all end here, he knows. She isn't saying anything. He's at the edge of a plateau with a decline big enough to injure him repeatedly and painfully but never kill him. He has his assortment of beers and brandies to subtract some of the pain, if they don't shatter from the fall.

He turns back to Niobe, knowing he should suggest they continue on to her home. But the words get caught on the way up when he finally gets a good look at her in low light, her dark hair almost invisible except where it contrasts her skin, her eyes fixed on him.

Her.

Heaven knows there's more going on in the world, even more going on in the street, probably, but she's still looking.

"You want to come up?" he asks instead, then cringes and prepares for the slap.

Niobe is nodding, though. And smiling a bit. Her eyes dart down to her knees and back up at him as the corners of her lips quiver in the smile.

He doesn't remember opening this door, climbing the stairs. Only the door to his actual flat. The place where he's reconciled himself to living myriad lifetimes alone. His hand shakes on the key in the lock. "I'm working on a few mosaics that would surely benefit from your opinion—"

Niobe closes the door with her elbow and pulls him against her lips.

And they turn to things they thought they wanted but actually needed in the isolated world.


End file.
